Quick no-churn vanilla ice cream

This past week I have been consumed by a book. So consumed that I could barely tear myself away from it long enough to write this post! ‘The Empress of Ice cream’ by Anthony Capella is a gastro-romance about the unexpectedly heated history of ice cream, most of which is based on true events. It has reawakened my passion for this frozen dessert, just in time for warm weather and summery sunshiney days.

Ice cream is one of those magical treats that everyone loves – they’ve even inspired some wise words; Don Kardong insists that ‘Without ice cream, there would be darkness and chaos’ which, I happen to completely agree with. I’m sure many a world war has been ended over a shared bowl of chocolate ice cream. But almost everyone can identify with Jim Fiebig’s sentiment that ‘age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone’.  Wiser words have not been uttered.

If you’ve ever tried to make your own ice cream, you will know that there are almost as many recipes out there as there are flavours, and that most of them require an ice cream machine. While I may consider taking out a small home loan to invest in one of these, I don’t expect you to do the same. And so, I’m sharing my fuss-free, no-churn, super-quick ice cream recipe that can be whisked into chocolate, strawberry, mocha, pistachio, or whichever other flavour scoops your vote this summer. And remember, you can’t buy happiness, but you can buy ice cream, and that’s kind of the same thing.

600 ml double cream

1 vanilla pod, split and seeds scraped

1 x tin condensed milk

Heat the double cream gently and add the vanilla pod and seeds. Bring to the boil then set aside to cool completely at room temperature. Refrigerate until chilled then remove the vanilla pod.

Whisk the cream and condensed milk together until smooth and thickened slightly.

Pour into a container and freeze for about 4 hours or until firm.

TIP To make a coconut ice cream, simply substitute half the double cream for tinned coconut cream.