Ren Behan - Author Wild Honey and Rye

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White Chocolate and Blackcurrant No-Churn Easy Ice Cream

Could it be that I have found the perfect ice cream recipe? You don’t need an expensive ice cream machine. You don’t need to make a custard base with egg yolks and sugar. All you need is a can of condensed milk and some double cream and you pretty much have it right there. It’s no secret that you can make ice cream using condensed milk as a base and there are many recipes on-line and a couple of different quantities and methods that you can try. Once you know that you just need two ingredients to start with, the fun part kicks in when it comes to flavouring.

I am grateful to Kavey over at Kavey Eats for challenging us to use condensed milk as a base. Firstly, because there has been a can of condensed milk sitting in my cupboard for some time. I can’t even remember what I originally bought it for, but it definitely wasn’t ice cream. Luckily, it was still in date, but it’s easy enough to pick up at the shops. I used the full fat version, but you can buy lighter versions now, too. Secondly, I now know exactly how easy it is to make no-churn ice cream at home and the end result was very delicious. Perfectly creamy with a nice crunch from the chopped up chocolate.

The most challenging bit of my recipe is making a blackcurrant or forest fruit puree. Only in as much as you have to whizz it or blend it, then pass it through a sieve. But you could use any coulis, or you could leave the blackcurrant out altogether and just go for white chocolate. Or, you could follow my cherry compote recipe and blitz that down, too for a cherry ripple and white chocolate version. You chose.

I used one can of condensed milk (there didn’t seem to be any point in using half as for the BBC Good Food recipe, here) because what do you do with the rest of it? And I used four small pots (600ml in total) of double cream. But I have seen that whipping cream (or heavy cream in the US) works well, too. Blackcurrants are in season, but sadly I couldn’t find any yet, so I used frozen berries.

Print

White Chocolate and Blackcurrant No-Churn Easy Ice Cream

Prep

Total

Ingredients

  • 250g fresh or frozen blackcurrants or forest berries
  • 600ml double cream
  • 397g can of condensed milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or the seeds of one vanilla pod
  • 100g white chocolate (I used Green and Blacks Vanilla), finely chopped or grated

Instructions

  1. Firstly, make the blackcurrant coulis/puree. Place the blackcurrants in a pan and add a tablespoon of water. Boil for just a minute or two, until the fruit begins to breakdown and soften slightly. Take off the heat. Using a hand blender or a stick blender, whizz the blackcurrants into a puree. Then, pass the blackcurrants through a fine sieve, pushing down with the back of a metal spoon, so that you have a smooth puree. Discard anything in the sieve. Leave the coulis/puree to one side to cool.
  2. For the ice cream, pour the can of condensed milk and double cream into a bowl. Add the vanilla extract or scrape in some vanilla seeds from the pod (by cutting it in half lengthways and using the tip of a knife to scrape them out). Use an electric hand whisk to beat the condensed milk, cream and vanilla until the mixture is quite thick for four-five minutes. It should be as thick as buttercream.
  3. Add the finely chopped or grated white chocolate and your cooled blackcurrant coulis/puree to the creamy mixture. Stir together lightly. Pour the mixture into a freezeable container or loaf tin, cover and leave overnight. There is no need to stir the mixture at all while it is freezing. Before serving, leave it to stand for twenty minutes or so, until you can easily scoop it.

Notes

Leave overnight to freeze

Recipe by Ren Behan

As mentioned, I am linking this post up to the Bloggers Scream for Ice Cream challenge over at Kavey Eats, using consended milk as the base.

IceCreamChallenge_thumb

Also, Choclette over at Chocolate Log Blog is hosting We Should Cocoa with a theme of blackcurrants, so I hope the white chocolate and blackcurrant coulis fits here.

Finally, I am linking this up to Sporting Snacks, too, hosted by me!

Hope you get to try this over the summer-time. Let’s hope it encourages the sunshine to come out!

What’s your flavour ice cream flavour combination? Have you ever tried making your own?

 

About Ren

Ren Behan is a British-born food writer of Polish descent. She is a mum to three young children (13, 10 and 5) and spends lots of time with them in the kitchen. Ren writes about seasonal, family-friendly food on her blog www.renbehan.com. She also contributes recipes and articles to online and print food publications, such as Food52.com, GreatBritishChefs.com, Huff Post Food and JamieOliver.com. She holds a Diploma in Food Journalism with Distinction and has completed a Food Styling course at Leiths School of Food and Wine.

Ren’s cookbook, Wild Honey and Rye: Modern Polish Recipes, draws upon her Polish heritage and regular travels to Poland.

Reader Interactions

Comments

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  3. This looks amazing Ren! And as Kavey said in her comment ‘Hope people who don’t usually make ice cream or don’t have machines will be encouraged to give this (and the others submitted to the round up) a go!’ I am one of those people and will definitely be giving this a go thanks to both of you 🙂

    Reply

  4. Hello Ren, I have been stalking you on Twitter etc for ages but seeing this has made me bite the bullet and stop being a lurker – we have made more or less the same icecream despite being on opposite sides of the world! How cool is that? Mine doesn’t need softening when it comes out of the freezer though, not sure why that is, possibly the jam keeps it soft.
    Anyway, love your work, not just this recipe. Have a great weekend, Lucy

    Reply

  6. I like dark chocolate ice cream, which now that I think about it would have made a nice combination with the blackcurrants. next time!!

    I like your site and your photographs very much!!!!

    Reply

  10. What a great idea and I must get going for my entry too. Think it sounds so easy using condensed milk and am wondering how it compares to being churned in an ice cream maker. The only way to find out is to get making it myself! Hope it looks as good as yours :))x

    Reply

  12. This sounds delightful Ren and so very easy. Not having an ice-cream maker, anything sounds good which doesn’t require churning. I would imagine the blackcurrants would work really well in this to offset the sweetness of the milk and white chocolate. I was going to try this combo too, but i hadn’t even got as far as looking up a recipe. I have made something else today though with blackcurrants and white chocolate, so I can use that for WSC. Thanks for sharing with WSC AND you managed to tick off two other challenges too 😉

    Reply

    • Thanks Chocolette, what can I say? Great minds think alike! I love the combination of blackburrant and white chocolate, so a great theme set by you also. Looking forward to the round-ups!

      Reply

  13. So glad you like the condensed milk/ double cream base – once I tried it I couldn’t believe how easy AND tasty it was, and of course, so easy to ring the changes, like you’ve done here. Hope people who don’t usually make ice cream or don’t have machines will be encouraged to give this (and the others submitted to the round up) a go!

    Reply

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