Any Ice Cream Flavouring with 4 Ingredients

Making Ice Cream at home could not be simpler! You only need 4 everyday ingredients and no special equipment. The flavouring is only limited by your imagination!

Ingredients

Base - Whipped cream and sweetened condensed milk make your ice cream base.

Flavouring - At a minimum, you would want to add a bit of vanilla extract if not using any other flavours. If you choose to add flavouring, you don't need the vanilla. You can use any commercial syrup you like - chocolate, caramel, dulce de leche. Bonus- I have included instructions on how to turn that sweetened condensed milk you are using anyway in to Home Made Caramel Sauce! ( You can literally make in your sleep in your slow cooker- you just have to start the day before you want to use it. Or you can make it well ahead and store it in the can itself.)

Or you can go the extract route. A little extract goes a long way so start with a ½ tsp, mix in well and test for taste. Adjust bit by bit as necessary.

Flavour Combos- Peanut butter incorporates well. How about halving the sweetened condensed milk and flavour one half with peanut butter and the other with chocolate?

Texture- If you want to get fancier you can up the ingredients list to add nuts or cookie chunks, but that is totally optional. Think about the range of cookies you could add! You want a fairly sturdy cookie - Peanut Butter, Chocolate Chip, Oreo. If the cookie is too airy or chopped too finely, it will just get absorbed by the cream. You are going for a noticeable bit of cookie, and it will have softened considerably from being in the ice cream.

And we haven't even got to the possibility of adding nuts chopped up. Pecan nuts with caramel flavouring anyone? Butterscotch and walnuts? Lemon and almonds?

And what about a chopped up candy bar? or Skor pieces? Crushed Candy Cane?

The limit is your imagination!

Chef's Tips

• While the flavour combinations are pretty much limitless, you don't want your final ice cream to be too 'busy'.  Choose a flavour component for the sweetened condensed milk and then consider adding cookies or nuts, or chocolate bar chunks.  You may choose not to add cookies or nuts etc.
• You may make some interesting flavour combinations by dividing the sweetened condensed milk in half and flavour each half differently.  Chocolate/Peanut Butter,  Banana/Coconut or Chocolate/Mint.  You get the idea...
• Avoid watery flavourings (like fruit juice).  The more water, the denser the ice cream will be and risks those unpleasant crystals.  Think about the difference in texture between ice cream and an ice cube.  The more water added the more the ice cream will lean toward the ice cube texture.
• You want to be careful not to overmix the whipped cream and deflate it.  The more air that escapes the whipped cream, the denser and harder your finished ice cream will be.
• Always add your flavouring to the sweetened condensed milk so you can incorporate it evenly (and avoid overmixing the whipped cream). 
• Flavourings may have different strengths so start with a small amount, incorporate evenly and then test for flavour.  Add more to taste.
• In the final mixing add the flavoured sweetened condensed milk in one spot all at once.  If you are adding cookies or nuts etc. add them on top of the flavouring before stirring.  Then stir gently to distribute the flavour and additions throughout.  You are looking for swirls of the flavoured sweetened condensed milk - not a uniform fully incorporated colour.
• If you are using a sweet syrup or sweet peanut butter reduce the sweetened condensed milk by about a ¼ cup to avoid an overly sweet final product.

Having provided all those tips above - it really is easy. Just don't overbeat or overmix the whipped cream. Add the flavour to the sweetened condensed milk and stir gently to swirl the flavoured milk. You don't want a uniform mixture/colour for your final ice cream.

This is so easy and so delicious ... I may never buy ice cream again. I made the Dulce de Leche version using the sweetened condensed milk already called for in the recipe. I added Salted Caramel Cookie chunks, but in the spirit of full disclosure, they were too delicate. They added flavour but not texture. They seemed to have been fully absorbed by the cream.

Let your imagination go..... If you come up with an exciting flavour combination, drop a comment below and inspire us all!

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