No-Churn Berry Swirl Ice Cream

A spoonful of this yummy berry swirl ice cream and you're going to be amazed at how easy it was to make! All you need are a few ingredients and no special tools to whip up this delicious sweet treat whenever you're in the mood for ice cream.

Hot weather needs ice cream...

...but instead of heading to the grocery store to buy a tub, why not make your own?

When all you need are four ingredients and no special appliance, how can you say no?

This recipe, at its most basic with three ingredients, makes a vanilla ice cream.

But I've jazzed it up by adding a fourth with a homemade berry sauce.

This berry swirl ice cream is so good and easy to make, you'll wonder why you never made your own ice cream before!

Just the Berries

The berry sauce for the swirl is simply about ½ lb. (225g) of fresh or frozen berries heated up in a pot so that the fruit softens and the juices come out. Mash the fruit with a potato masher as much as you want to help break down some of the fruit.

I do not add sugar to the berries since the ice cream itself will be plenty sweet enough, but you can add some sugar, if desired. Also, using frozen berries means you can make this ice cream any time of the year and not only when berries are in season (ie summer).

Once the berries are cooked and there is a good amount of berry juices in the pot, you can stop there and use it as-is to swirl into the ice cream mixture.

OR you could do like I do and mash the fruit really well in the pot, then pour the mixture through a sieve and press the fruit through to get the juices and pulp, but not the seeds. This step is completely optional.

Whichever way you want to do have your berry sauce, be sure to chill it in the refrigerator before stirring it into the ice cream mixture.

Sweetened Condensed Milk and Cream

Next comes the CREAM in the ice cream! First of all, you need to combine sweetened condensed milk and vanilla in one bowl, and this is basically where the sweetness and vanilla flavor base is coming from.

Sweetened condensed milk is also the magic ingredient that makes this recipe so easy. It is simply whole milk that has been cooked down until much of the water content has boiled away, and then sugar is added. It is, very simply, milk and sugar, which are the ingredients you would use if making ice cream the traditional way.

Next comes the whipping cream which you want to beat until stiff peaks form. (Be sure to read up on my post on How To Make Homemade Whipped Cream if you've never done it before!). Fold half the whipped cream into the sweetened condensed milk/vanilla mixture, then transfer that mixture to the rest of the whipped cream, folding and gently combining until smooth.

Extra Tip: It's good to make sure all your ingredients are cold. Just as you would make sure your bowl and beaters/whisk are cold before you start making whipped cream, put the can of sweetened condensed milk in the fridge for at least an hour before you start making the ice cream.

The Swirl

Next comes the fun part. There are a few ways you can do the swirl, but the way I illustrate it here is to drizzle the berry sauce into the ice cream mixture in the bowl and gently run a knife or spatula through it. Don't blend the berry sauce too much if you want to keep the swirls or color variations in the ice cream.

Pour the entire thing into a loaf pan, cover it with foil, and place it in the freezer to solidify...about 6 hours. Alternatively, you can use a glass container that has its own snap-on lid.

Another way you can do the swirl is to divide the berry mixture and drizzle dots in between layers of the cream mixture before running through it all with a knife or spatula, all in the container itself.

You can also opt to disregard the swirls altogether and simply turn this into a berry ice cream by blending the berry mixture in really well to the cream before pouring into the container. It's completely up to you!

Flavor Substitutions

The berry component to this recipe can be replaced with whatever your favorite ice cream fillings are. Instead of berries or a berry sauce, stir in chocolate sauce for a chocolate swirl, crushed cookies, chocolate chunks, chopped fresh fruit, etc. Use a completely different flavored extract or syrup like mint or orange. Mix in some coffee for a lovely coffee ice cream...one of my favorite flavors!

Alternatively, you can keep this to the three core ingredients and have a basic vanilla ice cream. In this case, you could substitute the vanilla extract with vanilla bean. There are so many ways to customize this recipe to your liking!

You Scream, I Scream, We All Scream...

To serve your berry swirl ice cream, remove the container from the freezer and let sit at room temperature for a couple of minutes before scooping.

I used to make ice cream the traditional way by cooking cream with vanilla beans and sugar, refrigerating it, and then churning it in an ice cream bowl attachment for my Kitchenaid mixer. It was a great recipe and I loved being able to make my own ice cream.

However, I no longer own a Kitchenaid mixer, let alone the ice cream bowl attachment, and there really is something to be said about this incredibly easy recipe that doesn't need anything fancy to make it. Easy ingredients, easy method...how can you argue with that?

Make some more berry sauce to drizzle on top, or simply enjoy this berry swirl ice cream with some fresh berries. You should also try adding a bit of my 3-Ingredient Blueberry Jam to the bowl...it really packs a bigger berry flavor punch to the ice cream!

And there you have it! No-churn berry swirl ice cream is going to delight and satisfy on any hot summer day, or any day you want to enjoy something cold and creamy.

~ Lisa.