Easy Homemade Strawberry Ice Cream

Easy Homemade Strawberry Ice Cream

With the help of an ice cream maker, your own frozen desserts are easily within reach. Once you realize how easy it is to make ice cream, you'll be making customized ice cream flavors all on your own.

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Why Make Homemade Ice Cream?

There are plenty of answers to this question. The first will be obvious when you taste this homemade strawberry ice cream. It’s delicious in a bright, fresh and simple ingredients kind of way. There are only a few ingredients in homemade ice cream and that’s something you can feel good about. Making your own ice cream is also fun, even with (or maybe because) an ice cream maker doing all the heavy lifting… or constant stirring. Plus, you can customize your flavors when you make it yourself and end up with something you’ve never had before, or can get anywhere else. So, with that answered, let’s get started!

An old fashioned ice cream scoop scooping strawberry ice cream out of a tub into three small bowls on a blue countertop.

The Tools You Will Need

This ice cream recipe does call for an ice cream maker. It can be any style of machine, from the simple hand cranked version I grew up with, to an electric ice cream maker with a bowl that you pre-freeze, to the more expensive compressor-style machines. If you don’t want to spend the high price, but still want the convenience of not having to pre-freeze a bowl for 24 hours ahead of time AND being able to make batch after batch of ice cream, then a thermo-electric ice cream maker might be for you. Whichever type of machine you have, just follow your ice cream maker’s directions for how to churn the ice cream when the time comes. You’ll also want a container to store your finished ice cream and a great ice cream scoop. 

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Ingredients on a wooden cutting board - strawberries, sugar, a lemon, cream, milk and vanilla extract.

Simple Pure Ingredients

The photo  above is a pretty sight to any home cook – just a few, easy-to-find ingredients. That’s all you need to make this homemade strawberry ice cream – cream, milk, vanilla extract, a lemon, some sugar and strawberries, or any type of berry or fruit that you like.

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A saucepan with cream and a wooden spoon sitting next to a blender with pureed strawberries.

Eggless Ice Cream

There are two main styles of ice cream – French-style and Philadelphia-style, and what separates the two are eggs. French-style ice cream uses a custard base that is made by heating cream and sugar together, tempering in eggs and then cooking until the mixture thickens. While this does make a delicious ice cream, it can be super rich and making the custard is off-putting to some home cooks. Philadelphia-style ice cream is much easier to make. There’s no custard, no eggs, no tempering, no thickening. All you have to do is heat the cream and milk just enough to dissolve the sugar as you stir. Then, add the flavoring ingredients (like the berry purée and vanilla) and churn according to your ice cream manufacturer’s instructions. That’s easy. The result is a little less creamy than French-style, but that just means you can eat more of it! 

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Strawberry Ice Cream base cooling in an ice bath with a wooden spoon resting on the bowl.

Start with a Cold Base

The most important tip when using an ice cream maker is to start with a cold base. That does require a little planning. Ideally, you want to make the base for the ice cream several hours ahead of time, but you can chill the base relatively quickly by using an ice bath – fill a large bowl with ice water and then place a smaller bowl with the ice cream base inside the larger bowl, surrounded by the ice water. Use a spoon to stir it regularly and it will cool down in no time. The cooler the base, the faster it will churn into ice cream, so don’t skip the cooling stage.

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Strawberry ice Cream in an ice cream maker.

Soft vs. Hard Ice Cream

There are many ice cream makers out there that claim to make ice creams of two different textures – soft and hard. This isn’t exactly true… or possible. All ice cream makers end up with ice cream that is soft serve. There comes a point in churning that the ice cream becomes too thick and heavy for the paddles of an ice cream maker to turn. That stage comes way before the ice cream could be considered “hard”. So, regardless of what ice cream maker you’re using, you should expect to have soft serve ice cream unless you freeze the ice cream after it has finished churning. That’s why it’s a great idea to have a container ready for that ice cream. In fact, I keep my ice cream container in the freezer until I’m ready to use it so that it’s super cold when that ice cream goes in, helping it to get to that “hard” stage sooner.

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Three scoops of ice cream in a small white bowl with bowls, spoons, a scoop and a tub of ice cream in the background.

How Long Will it Last?

This is a personal question. For no-one I know, ice cream will last 2 to 4 weeks in the freezer in a well-sealed container. For me, give me a couple hours. 

Strawberry Ice Cream

Nutrition Info Print Recipe
  • Prep Time: 15 m
  • Churning and Chilling Time: 8 h
  • Total Time: 8 h 15 m
  • Servings:
    8

Ingredients

  • 1½ cups heavy cream
  • ½ cup whole milk
  • ½ cup sugar divided
  • ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • juice of ½ lemon
  • 1 pound strawberries divided

Instructions

  1. Combine the heavy cream, milk, two thirds of the sugar (just reserve a couple of tablespoons), vanilla extract and salt in a medium saucepan. Bring to a simmer and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Remove the pan from the heat.

  2. Combine two thirds of the strawberries, lemon juice and the remaining sugar in a blender or food processor and blend together until smooth. Transfer the puréed strawberries to a bowl. Then, pulse the remaining strawberries into coarse pieces and add them to the purée. Combine the strawberries with the cream mixture and stir until smooth. Refrigerate and cool completely for at least 4 hours or overnight. If you don’t want to wait until tomorrow to make the ice cream, cool the ice cream base in a bowl resting in an ice bath and stir often to cool it quickly.
  3. When the mixture has completely cooled, pour it into an ice cream maker. Churn the mixture according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
  4. Serve soft serve style or transfer to a container and freeze for at least 2 hours for a harder, scoopable texture.
Enjoy,
If you made this recipe, please add your comments and ratings below.

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Comments (7)Post a Reply

  1. I love all your ideas for flavors of ice cream but I cheat with 2 ingredient ice cream and no ice cream maker needed.

    Reply

  3. Hello,
    Would fresh peaches work with this recipe and if so what modifications would be necessary?
    Thank you,
    Elizabeth

    Reply

    1. No you still have to churn the mixture in the machine to turn it into ice cream. The mixture is chilled so it cools completely which helps the churning process because the ice cream machine will stay colder.

      Reply

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