Lazy Ice Cream
There really is nothing as fresh and creamy as homemade ice cream. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve almost bought an ice cream maker. But I’ve always backed out at the last second, realizing that I’m never going to remember to put that churning bowl in the freezer 24 hours ahead of time. And I don’t know about you, but when I’m in the mood for ice cream, I kinda don’t want to wait a day and a half.
Luckily, this no-churn recipe — which I discovered one very late, very hot night last summer — takes just about 20 minutes and requires only a food processor (or sturdy blender). I call this “lazy ice cream” because it tends to come out more like an extra soft soft-serve than the classic, scoopable kind you’d get from a shop. But there is absolutely nothing half-hearted about the way it tastes. I’ve made lazy ice cream even when we already have store-bought ice cream in the house — it’s that good.
Lazy Ice Cream
Makes roughly 3 cups
1½-2 cups frozen fruit, like raspberries, blueberries or mango
1 14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk (you’ll only use about half)
½-1 cup heavy cream
Gather your ingredients and set up the food processor. If you remember, stick the cream in the freezer while you’re putting the processor together. This isn’t mandatory, but it doesn’t hurt to have extra cold cream.
Pour your fruit into the processor and quickly drizzle the condensed milk on top, starting with only a couple tablespoons. Pour the cream in, starting with only half a cup. Now pulse! The mixture will come together pretty quickly, so watch it closely. Just as it’s starting to look uniform, pause for a taste. Does it need more cream? Add another quarter cup. Does it need more sweetening? Drizzle in another spoonful of condensed milk. Pulse again until everything is just combined, then taste and adjust as needed. You can do this one or two times, adding up to a cup of cream and about half a can of condensed milk. Any more than that and you’ll wind up with a very cold and delicious pudding — which is great, just not ice cream.
Serve immediately, and stash any leftovers in a rectangular container in the freezer. If you manage to leave any overnight, it will indeed be scoopable the next day!
Note: In my experience, this works best with frozen raspberries, blackberries, or mango — but work with what you have. The key is to start by dumping in all the fruit, then adding a little cream and condensed milk at a time.
Do you have a lazy-but-great recipe I can add to my roster? Bonus if it’s a cold one!
P.S. An elegant cantaloupe lemonade that takes five minutes, a three-ingredient tomato sandwich, and our vanilla ice-cream taste test.
Tags: desserts
Comments
48 commentsGreek yogurt Frozen grapes as the sweetener Your choice of frozen berries for flavor. Healthier than the cream and condensed milk.
Maybe I will be a ‘cheater’, since I have a stand-alone freezer, but keeping the canister in the freezer has to be one of the best tricks for getting to make ice cream at the drop of a hat. When I was growing up (on a farm in Noble County, Indiana) we had 2 deep-freezers and made homemade ice cream in a hand-crank freezer pretty often during the summer months. That is what planted the seeds in me for wanting and/or NEEDING ice cream as often as possible, homemade or store-bought.
Another great fast lazy ice cream is any kind of frozen fruit, any type of sweetener and half n’ half. Just enough half n’ half to barely cover the fruit you’re using in the bowl or blender you poured it in. If no half n half then heavy cream and whole milk which is exactly why half n half is. I have used a blender for this and a hand blender. Either way it’s fast. And if it is a little watery like then just add more frozen fruit. That will make it stiffen up. Or put it in the freezer for a couple hours. Enjoy!
An even simpler version is frozen bananas and frozen or fresh fruit of your choice. Put both in processor and whiz them together till well mixed. Made this treat with my nieces and nephews for years and they always looked forward to this when they came for weekend visits. Never needed to add sugar or honey unless it was with raspberries. It’s soft serve at its best.
Such a Brazilian recipe! We add condensed milk to everything. Try it with lime juice or passion fruit (strain the seeds) like we do in Brazil!
These all sound good, but I’m more likely to have my churn bowl in the freezer than to have sweetened condensed milk in the pantry.
Eric Kim’s No-Churn Ice cream has been a hit at my house several times! Love it! https://food52.com/recipes/81527-no-churn-ice-cream-with-vanilla-bean-scotch
My kids love this Doris Greenspan lemon ice cream. Super delicious. We have a Meyer Lemon tree, so we usually make with that kind of lemon. https://food52.com/recipes/77250-dori-sanders-no-churn-fresh-lemon-ice-cream
Ooh, I’ve been wanting to try a lemony ice cream!
We make lazy custard ice cream 2:1 ratio of heavy whipping cream to condensed milk. Whip all of the whipped cream until stiff peaks form, one tablespoon of good quality vanilla essence/paste and pour the can of condensed milk. Mix and freeze for 6 hours.
I will probably never stop being charmed by Daniel Tiger’s “banana swirl” since it aired when my oldest was little (blend or put frozen bananas through the food processor — that’s truly it, although toppings like fruit, nuts, chocolate are all welcome) https://pbslearningmedia.org/resource/58ee23c0-af1b-4a54-8c23-ec00f2e7edbb/making-banana-swirl/
OMG, we make Daniel Tiger’s banana swirl ALL THE TIME.
Anyone got a vegan version of this? Something maybe with coconut milk? (no bananas please – can’t have ’em)
There’s coconut condensed milk in the can sold in stores and then you put coconut cream from the top of the can and it’s really good
I would seek out condensed coconut milk, which is vegan and really delcious– can be found at Whole Foods I think. And for the cream, sub in coconut cream or some other plant-based “heavy cream” product. Have not tried this exactly but I am a pastry chef and this is where I’d start :)
Not the exact same in terms of softness, but soaked cashews can achieve impressive creaminess and satisfying density akin to chilled cheesecake. If you search raw cashew dreamcake, there’s a bunch of versions of this recipe originally from the blog My New Roots. I’ve been making this for years (with and without the crust) and it’s easily adaptable to different fruits. Also a reliable hit for summer birthdays. (I am not vegan, I just love this particular “cake”)
Coconut cream plus frozen berries!
There used to be a great blog called chocolate and zucchini, run by an English speaking woman in France. She posted a recipe for Nutella ice cream that is basically equal parts evaporated milk to Nutella. She made it in an ice cream freezer. I pour it into small popsicle molds instead. The hard part is patience while it freezes overnight. Very rich. Very good. One can add bananas, raspberries, etc in the molds if they are on hand.
Had to Google this! Do you just mix the Nutella and evaporated milk and freeze? I don’t have an ice cream maker but I do have popsicle molds.
https://cnz.to/recipes/ice-cream-sorbets/super-simple-nutella-ice-cream-recipe/ My son would eat bowls as a kid. Fun reminder!
Yum!!! I love Nutella so I’m def going to try this.
This is so similar to a terrific recipe in Gwyneth Paltrow’s its all good cookbook (Julia Turshen helped autbor this and that spurred my lifelong love of Julia’s cookbooks and substack), food process 2 cups frozen berries with 1/2 cup coconut milk and 2 tbsp maple syrup (the good kind!). Pulse until smooth and eat right away or freeze and let it sit out 10 minutes before eating
Thank you! Made this tonight; it was grrreat.
This sounds one up what I make. I just make frozen mango, a bit of thick Greek yoghurt, splash of vanilla. No sugar- great for under one year olds and 99 year olds. Trick is to put less yoghurt than you think you need and to blend for a couple of minutes so it’s scoop-able. So fresh! Best eaten immediately, but can be stored in the freezer.
I do the same, and if you want a tip: add a date to it. A single date to 300g of fruit and you won’t believe the depth it adds to the recipe. Beats any store bought ice cream imo
My current obsession: a handful of frozen banana slices, a handful of frozen raspberries, a big scoop of Nutella, and just enough milk to make things blend. Anything chocolate + raspberry is an elite combo, and the frozen bananas give this the texture of an exceptionally slurpable milkshake.
This sounds soooo good.
I love my ice cream maker. I just store the bowl in my freezer and haven’t had an issue with that (it takes up room, for sure, but I usually tuck a bag of frozen veggies or two in the bowl to take advantage of whatever space I can). I am obsessed with NYTs master ice cream recipe and all of the different flavor options – my favorite is salted caramel. Melissa Clark can do no wrong in my eyes. https://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/cuisinart-ice-22-ice-cream-maker-mint-green/?catalogId=79&sku=3758696&cm_ven=PLA&cm_cat=Google&cm_pla=Electrics%20%3E%20Ice%20Cream%20%26%20Gelato%20Makers&cm_ite=3758696_22633617307_pla-2376531263708&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22633617307&gbraid=0AAAAADrs9cH9CciousgmmQlaXXzmI1dVu&gclid=Cj0KCQjwkILEBhDeARIsAL–pjzQVuZCdp0Yd-NYVsRJsbdhkUJy_pZrNnmrh82Zqn_uKocydOzPqMAaApfVEALw_wcB https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/01/dining/the-master-ice-cream-recipe.html
Can you post the NYT recipe? It won’t let you view it without subscribing.
I eat the banana pancakes Johanna posted years ago. Half a banana plus one egg. Whisk it and then cook it like a pancake!
Aaah, I’d forgotten about this recipe and it’s such a good one! Thank you for reminding me!
A shot of (cooled) espresso and some optional chocolate chips!
love this idea!
What about chocolateeeee??? 😂
Sub frozen bananas and lots of cocoa powder! I love fresh fruit, but have zero interest in fruit ice cream. Chocolate all the way
My favorite variation of this is the raspberry flavor, topped with Smitten Kitchen’s hot fudge sauce — which is also incredibly easy and quick. If you’ve got ten extra minutes, it’s well worth it! https://smittenkitchen.com/2017/06/best-hot-fudge-sauce/
I was obsessed with no-churn ice cream the summer of 2021. I made batches with my nieces and nephew and they got to choose their flavors. We had a batch of m&m ice cream, peanut butter ice cream, and blueberry ice cream! It’s extremely customizable. I should definitely bring it back this year.
Sounds amazing, which recipe did you use?
Cool! As one who prefers no fruit in my dairy – I will try this with coffee. Perhaps frozen coffee & frozen (green) banana for bulk.
There are models that you do not need to pre-freeze! I go from 0 to ice cream (with a custard base) in under an hour! Even quicker for a froyo or a base that does not require cooking. Linking mine because I am evangelical. https://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/breville-smart-scoop-ice-cream-compressor/?catalogId=79&sku=9146473&cm_ven=PLA&cm_cat=Google&cm_pla=Electrics%20%3E%20Ice%20Cream%20%26%20Gelato%20Makers&cm_ite=9146473_22623742983_pla-1418851112821&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22623742983&gbraid=0AAAAADrs9cF8l9llX4ANbfN3LJXEB-kAe
If anyone is looking for a healthy shake-like concoction: dates, plain kefir, and frozen strawberries in a blender. I found this while pregnant and trying to eat more dates. The dates sweeten it, the kefir gives it a grown up tang, and the strawberries are the main attraction. Sooooo good.
Ooh, Tracy! What are the ratios you use? This sounds fabulous! (& like I wanna drizzle a little nice balsamic on it!)
We freeze this in popsicle molds and my kids call them “healing popsicles” because whatever bug we’ve got it seems to help us feel better! I use 6 soaked dates, 1.5 c kefir or yogurt (any kind including coconut yogart*), 2 c fruit (usually Costco frozen organic berries), half to 1 teaspoon cardamom, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract. It’s a great yogurt drink too. * I recently learned that you can make your own coconut yogurt with canned coconut milk and probiotic capsules. For anyone like me who has more time than money!
Tory- I totally eye-balled it but the ratios another commenter said below sound perfect. Enjoy!
Oh, thank you for this, Kelsey. Looks delicious. Do you think it would work if I just blended the cream and milk, using the 2:1 ration, and added whole frozen fruit? (The even lazier version of lazy ice cream.)
oops… “ratio” not “ration!”
My two cents – it would work but you would have to freeze it for a few hours (as without the frozen fruit there would be no frozen component) and I personally wouldn’t like biting into a whole frozen strawberry or large chunk of other frozen fruit.
Hmm, as CL noted earlier, I don’t think it would really come together. It may be more like sweetened milk with frozen-fruit ice cubes — which, honestly, could be pretty great (especially if you add some vanilla).