Nothing beats the heat of August like a few scoops of ice cream. Thanks to my son — who has several recipes memorized — we almost always have a container of homemade ice cream in the freezer.
Today I read a newspaper article claiming that store-bought ice cream would always trump homemade, that the texture and wide variety of flavors in the premium brands just can’t be matched. Now, while I do buy one or two flavors from one or two brands occasionally, I don’t usually buy store ice cream, thank you very much.
I can’t get past the ingredients that read like the inventory list from Home Depot. Wood pulp, coal tar, polysorbate 80, and trans fat? Really? Turn over a carton of basic vanilla and you can count about 15 ingredients, many of them genetically modified and most of them artificial chemicals. Add in cookie chunks and the list skyrockets to at least 30 — mostly chemical — ingredients.
Contrast all of that with homemade vanilla, made with four real food ingredients: cream, sugar, eggs, and vanilla.
If you take the time to make ice cream from scratch and with nourishing ingredients, your reward is a healthy food. Full-fat, raw cream from grassfed cows and eggs from pasture-raised hens yield ice cream plentiful in vitamins, minerals, and healthy fats. In the words of neurologist and author Dr. David Perlmutter, “Fat is the most wonderful, health-providing food that we can obtain in the human diet.”
The cookie dough in this recipe is gluten-free, making this ice cream more allergy-friendly. Choose your sweetener carefully, using real maple syrup or raw honey, both of which contain the necessary nutrients to help metabolize the sugar.
Hey, this ice cream could be eaten for breakfast without too much guilt! 😉
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream (Gluten-Free)
Ice Cream Base (using an ice cream machine)
Ingredients
- 4 organic or pastured egg yolks
- 1/2 cup maple syrup
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 3 cups heavy cream preferably raw, never ultrapasteurized
Instructions
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Place the egg yolks, maple syrup, and vanilla in a large bowl.
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Whisk together until smooth.
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Add the cream and whisk until blended well.
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Pour the mixture into an ice cream freezer and process according to manufacturer's directions.
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Just before the ice cream is ready to remove from the maker, add in 1 cup of the little cookie dough balls (recipe below).
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You might have to encourage them down into the ice cream with a spoon.
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Once they are mixed in you can remove the ice cream from the machine and place it in a freezer-safe container with a lid.
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Place it in your freezer until you are ready to dig in.
Ice Cream Base (Ziplock Method)
If you do not have an ice cream maker, follow these instructions. You can use your favorite ice cream recipe with this method. I have done with my Sunday School class for the last month and they are constantly amazed by it. 😉
Ingredients
- organic or pastured egg yolks
- 1/2 cup maple syrup
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 3 cups heavy cream preferably raw never ultrapasteurized
Instructions
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Place the egg yolks, maple syrup, and vanilla in a large bowl.
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Whisk together until smooth.
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Add the cream and whisk until blended well.
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Chill mixture
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Place 2 cups of chilled ice cream mixture into a heavy duty quart-sized bag and zip it up securely.
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Place the quart bag inside a heavy-duty gallon-sized bag.
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Fill the gallon bag with enough crushed ice so that the ice cream bag is completely surrounded.
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Add rock salt/ice cream salt and seal up the gallon bag.
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Wrap the whole set of bags in a bath towel and then give it to the kids to shake and roll around for about 15 minutes. (Supervise them, you don't want the whole thing to get punctured and have ice cream and salt water all over the carpet.)
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After 15 minutes the ice cream should be at the soft-serve stage.
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Add in 1 cup of the little cookie dough balls (recipe below) or any other mix-ins at this point and eat it right away, or you can stick the whole bag into the freeze and eat it later.
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To serve after freezing, it will need to sit out for a few minutes to soften.
Cookie Dough
Nothing beats the heat of August like a few scoops of ice cream.
Ingredients
- 1-3/4 cups garbanzo beans soaked, cooked, and drained
- 1/2 cup almond butter
- 1/4 cup raw honey
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
- generous pinch sea salt
- 1/2 cup chocolate chips *
Instructions
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Place the garbanzo beans, almond butter, honey, coconut oil, vanilla, baking soda, and salt in a food processor and process until very smooth -- about 1 to 2 minutes.
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Stir in the chocolate chips by hand.
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Using a teaspoon, drop the dough onto a waxed paper or plastic wrap-covered baking sheet.
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Make the balls very small.
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Freeze the dough balls while you assemble and make the ice cream.
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If the dough balls are too big you can cut them into smaller pieces after they are firm.
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Allow them to freeze between 30 and 60 minutes.
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You will need 1 cup of the cookie dough pieces for the ice cream.
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Feel free to eat the extra as is, or save for another batch of ice cream!
Recipe Notes
*Such as these or these no-sugar, stevia-sweetened chocolate chips.
For ten more delicious homemade ice cream recipes, visit Well Fed Family’s website and sign up for the free ice cream e-book!
What do you love most about homemade ice cream?
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This looks so good! I’ve been on a homemade ice cream kick this summer and we’ll have to try this.
THis looks so yummy Lee! I think I’ll try it with the kids for an after school snack this week. Pinned it!
This looks amazing! We had the Well Fed Family chocolate ice cream last night (from the ice cream e-book mentioned above). It is sooooo rich and delicious!
I love Well Fed Family’s chocolate ice cream and the next batch I make will be vanilla using this ice cream base. I use a Kitchenaid ice cream attachment but my daughter loves ice cream made in a Ziploc!
I made this in a Ziploc bag and it reminded me of my childhood. I totally forgot that you could make ice cream that way. So easy and so delicious! (My family especially loved the taste of maple syrup in the ice cream base. YUM.)
I love this recipe – I’ve used the base recipe for many years and everyone always loves it!
Since I have to eat dairy free, I made great homemade coconut milk ice cream in zip seal bags last year. taste and texture was very similar to dairy ice cream! This reminds me to do it again! This time, I’ll put in egg yolks.
We don’t eat a lot of ice cream because we don’t have an ice cream maker…..I keep meaning to try the Ziploc bag method, but haven’t yet. I’ve also never used anything but flour to make cookies. So, this will be a fun and interesting recipe for us to try.
Looks great!! I love having another way to eat garbanzo beans too – never would have thought of that myself, but thanks for the tip! Can’t wait to try this one!
Would this work with raw full-fat milk? or just cream?
you can use milk, but then you will have ice milk 🙂 My son likes to use 2 parts cream and 1 part raw milk.