Whether you're a fan of plain vanilla or prefer your ice cream loaded with mix-ins, one thing's for sure: nothing beats homemade ice cream. It's cooling, creamy, and delightful, and while it may take some patience, the end results are certainly sweet. Here, we're highlighting some of our favorite recipes, including Roasted Strawberry-Vanilla Ice Cream, Honey Lavender Ice Cream, Coffee Ice Cream, and some vegan options like Vegan Chocolate-Chipotle Ice Cream as well. They all deserve a spot in your freezer — all you have to do is pick which one to make first.
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Bastani Irani (Rosewater-and-Saffron Ice Cream )
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Dried roses top this fragrant ice cream, creating a beautiful contrast of colors. It's traditionally served between two thin wafers to make ice cream sandwiches, but it's equally delicious on its own.
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Vanilla-Almond Ice Cream with Cherries and Pistachios
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F&W's Justin Chapple doesn't use an ice cream maker for this sweet and creamy custard-based ice cream. Instead he spoons the custard into a large resealable freezer bag (pressing out any air) and lays it flat in the freezer until it becomes firm. Then, he quickly transfers it to the bowl of a food processor and pulses it until smooth, and then to a chilled loaf pan, where he folds in the cherries and pistachios. After a final freeze, it's ready to eat.
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Coffee Ice Cream
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Creamy, cold and caffeinated, this ice cream is everything your morning iced coffee should be. Decaffeinated coffee beans work well here, too.
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Vanilla Ice Cream
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You only need four ingredients to make this vanilla ice cream recipe: half-and-half, sugar, egg yolks, and a vanilla bean, of course. Enjoy it all on its own or use it to top pies, cobblers, and more.
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Peach-Buttermilk Ice Cream
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Be sure to use the best buttermilk you can get for this recipe. The ice cream is just as much about the rich, tangy buttermilk as it is the fragrant peaches. Once made, it can be frozen for up to two weeks.
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French-Style Ice Cream
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This traditional ice cream has an egg-rich custard base. Chef Christina Spittler, formerly of Molly Moon's, says the yolks help make a denser ice cream. You can choose your own adventure for the flavor because variations for Chocolate-Toffee, Blackberry-Sage, Salted Caramel, and Strawberry-Jalapeño are included at the bottom of the recipe.
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Olive Oil Ice Cream
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One of Portland, Oregon–based ice cream shop Salt & Straw's classic flavors, this Olive Oil Ice Cream is a perfect beginner batch to whip up. The combination of olive oil and whole milk in this ice cream results in a perfectly creamy and silky texture, no eggs or tempering required. You can even play with different nut oils (like hazelnut or walnut) in place of olive oil — just avoid those that are solid at room temperature, like coconut oil.
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Salted Watermelon Ice Cream
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You know for sure that it's summer when slices of salted ripe watermelon are on the menu, and this simple ice cream takes the treat to the next level. Coconut milk infuses the ice cream base with its velvety-smooth sweetness; lime helps intensify the juicy watermelon flavor. To salt or not to salt? That is the question, and it's entirely up to you. If you're skeptical, try it with crunchy flakes of Maldon sea salt. They'll make you a believer.
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Peach-Blueberry Ice Cream
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Ripe and fragrant summer peaches are the hero of this simple homemade ice cream. It's great on its own or on a slice of toasted pound cake for a dinner party dessert. For an easy do-ahead, make the blueberry jam a week in advance, then stir it in when you're ready to freeze. If you're inspired, make a double batch of the jam and keep it around for topping toast or stirring into yogurt.
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Licorice Ice Cream
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This licorice ice cream from Alecia Moore (aka P!nk) and Robbie Grantham-Wise is very rich, with a texture more like gelato. Along with the herbal tang of black licorice, a deeply sweet molasses flavor comes through. It pairs perfectly with this Sweet Potato Pie with Honeycrisp-Kabocha Salad — and if you want to raise a glass with dessert? We're fully on-board.
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No-Churn Corn Ice Cream
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No need to hunt down an ice cream maker for this simple no-churn ice cream — just the sweetest fresh summer corn you can find. Corn kernels get blitzed in a food processor then strained and simmered down into a sweet pudding that forms the base of this dreamy dessert. A drizzle of store-bought dulce de leche provides the perfect buttery-sweet finish.
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Honey Lavender Ice Cream
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Steeping dried lavender buds in a wildflower honey syrup infuses it with a remarkable flavor that perfectly complements the rich ice cream base. A touch of natural food coloring is totally optional, but Salt & Straw's Tyler Malek highly recommends it. He also notes that you should be sure to use culinary lavender, or organically grown lavender, to be sure the lavender is food-safe.
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Birthday Cake and Blackberry Ice Cream
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This beyond-creamy vanilla ice cream, another recipe from Tyler Malek, is studded with crunchy pieces of toasted rainbow-sprinkle birthday cake. The base first takes a spin in an ice cream maker and then the glorious birthday cake crumbles — packed with plenty of rainbow sprinkles, of course — are layered in, along with the blackberry jam, ensuring that every bite is celebratory.
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Vegan Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
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After meticulous testing, the Food & Wine test kitchen discovered the surprising key ingredient for the creamiest vegan ice cream: pea milk. With the right balance of unsaturated fat and protein and a relatively mild, neutral flavor, it's the perfect base for this sweet vanilla treat. This vegan ice cream is a treat on its own, but is also lovely atop vegan Sour Cherry and Black Pepper Pie, or as a filling for vegan ice cream sandwiches using Double-Chocolate Rye Cookies.
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Banana-Rum Ice Cream in Cheddar-Cracker Cones
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Chef and Studio ATAO founder Jenny Dorsey uses ground-up cheddar crackers instead of flour for the batter in her ice cream cones, creating a sweet, cheesy, crunchy, and salty vessel to fill with a rum-infused caramelized banana ice cream. If you don't have a waffle cone maker, you can spread the batter out thinly in a skillet and cook until golden brown on both sides.
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Vegan Chocolate-Chipotle Ice Cream
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This recipe is 100% vegan, but you would never know it. It's rich, like frozen ganache, with a bit of smoky tang from dried chipotles. Nondairy ice cream is typically made with alternative milks or nondairy yogurt to achieve the creaminess of regular ice cream, but chef and ice cream maker Fany Gerson opts for a combination of both, calling for unsweetened oat milk or rice milk as well as coconut yogurt. "I don't love chocolate ice cream, but it's my husband's favorite, though he would never order a sorbet," she says. "So the challenge here was to make a chocolaty vegan ice cream that isn't a sorbet, has the creaminess of ice cream, and would appeal to both of us. The finished product is as creamy as it gets for being made without dairy, and the flavor combination of chocolate and chipotle, which is smoky and a bit hot, adds personality."
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Roasted Strawberry-Vanilla Ice Cream
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This sweet, tart, and creamy confection is a beautiful homage to the classic combo of strawberries and cream. According to chef and ice cream maker Fany Gerson, the key to French-style ice cream is making a custard base so good you could eat it without freezing it. In this recipe, Gerson dips into nostalgia. "My mom would take strawberries and put a little Mexican crema and sugar on top, and that became dessert," she recalls. "Roasting the strawberries gives a new dimension to the fruit."
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Peach Ice Cream with Caramel-Bourbon Swirl
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Tart, buttery, and sweet, the caramel-bourbon swirl here comes through in the best of ways, balancing the rich notes of the crème fraîche in this silky, swirled ice cream. Fresh, ripe peaches add a great bit of texture in every bite. Fany Gerson's recipe uses cream (no milk) and crème fraîche or sour cream to balance out the flavors and add creaminess to the fluffy texture.
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