Making homemade ice cream is both fun and delicious but often after you store the ice cream in your refrigerator tiny ice crystals form in your ice cream making the texture less creamy and giving you a taste more like “snow cream” instead of creamy, smooth “ice cream” we are familiar with.
By adding certain ingredients that actually bind to the water in the ice cream to either reduce the water content or make the water freeze at a lower temperature so the ice crystals do not form as much. These “ice crystal reducing” ingredients are:
- Cornstarch
- Gelatin
- Alcohol
- Egg Yolks
Below is a recipe that uses all 4 ingredients. Feel free to use all of them or just 1, 2 or 3 of them… until you get the taste and texture ice cream you want. You do not have to modify any of the other ingredients if you eliminate any or all of the “ice crystal reducing” ingredients.
Ingredients
- 2 C Milk
- 1 C Heavy Cream
- 1/2 C Sugar (or 1/2 C Honey)
- 1 T Vanilla Extract
- 1/8 t very fine salt (sea salt is ideal)
- 2 T Corn Starch
- 1 t Gelatin
- 1 t Vodka (100 proof preferred but 80 proof will work)
- 4 egg yolks
Directions (using ice cream machine*)
- Combine the milk and cream
- Add all other ingredients to the mild/cream mixture and stir very well until all of the ingredients are dissolved.
- Pour the milk/cream mixture into you ice cream make and follow the machines instruction to make you homemade ice cream.
Pro Tip: This recipe calls for 2 C Milk and 1 C Heavy Cream which gives you a total of 3 C of a milk and cream mixture. You can change the taste and texture of your final ice cream by either using more cream and less milk just so the total of the milk and cream equals 3 C For example you can use:
- 1 C Milk and 2 C Heavy Cream
- 1/2 C Milk and 2.5 C Heavy Cream
- 0 C Milk and 3 C Heavy Cream
*Note
If you are serious about making ice cream at home it is highly recommended to purchase a ice cream maker with has a compressor in it which cools your ice cream without the need for ice and salt that the old-fashion hand crank ice cream makers need. Hand crank ice cream makers are great if you want to relive the “old days” and make ice cream like your grandparents did but keep in mind you final product will also be the same as your grandparents had,,,,a semi-creamy product with tiny ice crystals in the ice cream.