Homemade Chocolate Ice Cream (No Machine Needed!)
Make decadent chocolate ice cream without any special equipment! You only need 4 ingredients to make a delicious chocolate ice cream base.
This is going to be your new favorite ice cream recipe, and let me tell you why. There’s no egg custard or cooking. No food processor or special tools. No separating egg whites or buying weird ingredients like xantham gum. This is one of those simple recipes that delivers — creamy ice cream, made with your average electric mixer and easy ingredients.
Even though I own an ice cream maker, I find myself coming back to this basic recipe time and time again. It’s such a great feeling to make your own homemade ice cream, and even if you’re a kitchen beginner, you can create absolutely delicious ice cream in your own home.
Why you want this recipe
- budget-friendly
- thick and creamy
- rich chocolate flavor
- no ice cream machine required
- easy enough for kitchen beginners!
Ingredients
One of my favorite parts of this recipe is that it’s made from simple ingredients — two of which I can keep in my pantry for whenever the craving strikes!
- Heavy Whipping Cream: This forms the base of your ice cream, making it rich and giving it that creamy texture. I do not recommend subbing anything for this — whipping the cream to stiff peaks gives the ice cream structure. Without it, you have vanilla soup!
- Sweetened Condensed Milk: This is what we’re using to sweeten our ice cream. It also keeps the ice cream from crystallizing, which ruins the texture (it tastes like the ice cream got freezer burn). This is another ingredient I do not recommend subbing.
- Cocoa Powder: You can use either dutch-processed cocoa powder or natural cocoa powder here. I love to use Hershey’s Dark Cocoa Powder to make dark chocolate ice cream!
- Vanilla Extract: This one is here entirely for the flavor. You can sub this with any other extract to play around with flavors — almond extract and espresso both work well with chocolate flavor. If you want to stick with vanilla, you can also sub vanilla bean paste in a 1:1 ratio, or use a single real vanilla bean, if you’re fancy.
Instructions
Step 1 | Whip the Cream and Prep the Milk
To start, place a standard loaf pan in the freezer.
Then, pour your heavy cream into a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. While you can do this with just elbow grease, I do recommend using either a hand mixer or a stand mixer to beat your cream into stiff peaks. This video is fantastic for understanding the difference between soft peaks and stiff peaks!
While your cream is whipping, you can pour the sweetened condensed milk into a separate medium bowl. Add the vanilla and cocoa powder and mix them together.
Step 2 | Lighten
Once your cream is whipped and you have gorgeous stiff peaks, we’re going to use a little of that cream to lighten the milk. Basically, if we pour the chocolate mixture straight into our whipped cream, we’ll lose that lovely lightness that creates the creamy texture.
In order to avoid this, we’re going to fold 1 cup of the whipped cream into the milk. If you need a little clarification on folding, this video is fantastic.
Step 3 | Fold
Now we’re going to exercise our folding skills by folding the lightened milk a little at a time into the whipping cream. This is by far the hardest part of the recipe, and it’s not that hard!
Once the milk is completely incorporated into the whipped cream, you’ll end up with this silky, creamy homemade ice cream base. Try not to eat it by the spoonful!
Step 4 | First Freeze
Take your loaf pan out of the freezer and pour your ice cream mixture in, smoothing it out with a spatula.
Then, press wax paper down so that it completely covers the surface of the ice cream. The wax paper’s job is to prevent the formation of ice crystals on the surface, so you want to press it into the top of the ice cream.
Place your covered ice cream in the freezer and let it freeze for 2 hours.
Step 5 | Stir and Final Freeze
Now, you can skip the middle stir and just let your ice cream freeze straight through, but for best results, I recommend taking the ice cream out of the freezer and stirring it around at about the 2 hour mark.
This prevents any crystallization from happening, and also allows us to add our favorite add-ins without them sinking to the bottom.
Once you’ve stirred (and added any mix-ins), you can replace the wax paper, again pressing it down into the top of the ice cream, and put the ice cream back in the freezer for another 2 hours.
Step 6 | Enjoy!
Take the ice cream out of the freezer 5-10 minutes before you want to serve it. It scoops just like regular ice cream, and you can top it with your favorites: fresh fruit, caramel sauce, chocolate sauce, hot fudge sauce, chocolate chips, crushed Oreos, nuts, and whatever else you love!
Flavor Variations
You can use this base recipe to create a ton of different flavors!
- Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream: Do your mid-freeze stir, then swirl in 3-4 Tbsps of creamy peanut butter to create gorgeous swirls of peanut butter!
- Almond Joy Ice Cream: Add shredded coconut and chopped almonds to the ice cream after the mid-freeze stir.
- Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream: Chop up some Reese’s peanut butter cups and add them after the mid-freeze stir. Feel free to swirl in a few tablespoons of peanut butter to add to that peanut butter chocolate flavor!
- Rocky Road Ice Cream: Add chopped almonds and mini-marshmallows as mix-ins.
- Oreo Ice Cream: During your mid-freeze stir, add crushed Oreo cookies to your delicious homemade ice cream!
FAQs
The ice cream can be stored in the freezer for up to 2 weeks in an airtight, freezer-safe container.
You really can’t sub this ingredient as sweetened condensed milk provides the necessary sweetness and texture.
You really can’t sub this ingredient. Heavy cream is essential for creating the structure of the ice cream. I have heard good things about Silk’s plant-based whipping cream, but I’ve never tried it personally
Chocolate No Churn Ice Cream
Ingredients
- 2 cups heavy whipping cream
- 1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
- 2 tsp vanilla
- ½ cup cocoa
Instructions
- Chill a bread pan in the freezer.
- Whip cream until stiff peaks form (this takes my mixer about 10 minutes).
- Pour sweetened condensed milk into separate bowl and add vanilla and cocoa. Stir until well mixed.
- Scoop 1 cup of cream and fold into milk.
- Fold lightened milk into cream until well combined.
- Pour ice cream into chilled bread pan and smooth. Press wax paper down firmly, then place in freezer.
- Allow to freeze for 2 hours. Remove from freezer and stir. If you are adding mix-ins, stir them in now.
- Replace wax paper and put ice cream back in freezer.
- Allow to freeze until hard.
