With this no-churn ice cream, there’s absolutely NO NEED for an ice cream maker! And, it’s a nutritional powerhouse of great foods: living probiotic-rich yogurt, egg yolks from pastured hens, raw cream from grass-fed cows. Try this no-cook, no-churn ice cream and you’ll never go back to store bought ice cream again. Why? Because this is far, far too easy and is far, far better for you.
To be fair, I should say that this method works with any flavor of ice cream you want to whip together. I’ve used strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries. I’ve used vanilla. But in my mind, honey and cinnamon just can’t be beat. Just have fun.
No-Churn Ice Cream: How It Works
You may be wondering how you can possibly make ice cream without an ice cream maker. Doesn’t it come out like a solid brick of, well, frozen cream? Of course not! I wouldn’t give you a recipe like that.
The reason you churn ice cream when making it is to capture all those tiny air bubbles created from churning the cream while the cream is freezing. All that captured air is what makes the ice cream scoopable and creamy. But the trick to a no-churn ice cream is to capture those air bubbles before freezing. You do this by whipping the cream.
No-Churn Ice Cream Recipe: Honey Cinnamon
The Players
- 4 C. cream from grass-fed cows (raw is best!)
- 2 C. plain yogurt (where to find yogurt & yogurt starter cultures)
- 4 egg yolks (from pastured hens)
- 1/2 C. raw honey (where to find raw honey)
- 1 T. ground cinnamon* (where to find organic, bulk cinnamon)
The How-To
1. Begin by whisking the yogurt, egg yolks, honey, and cinnamon together until smooth.
2. In a separate bowl, whip your cream until medium peaks form.
3. Gently fold the yogurt mixture into the whipped cream.
4. FREEZE for at least 6 hours before serving. ENJOY your tantalizing, delicious, super-easy, no-churn ice cream!
I just read an interesting tip from Sarah at The Healthy Home Economist. She says that you can add a couple tablespoons of vodka to the ice cream mixture before freezing to improve scoopability straight out of the freezer. I think the no-churn ice cream recipe above is fine as is (probably because of the honey!), but for those of you who love the softness of store-bought ice cream (which uses — ahem — antifreeze to keep ice cream soft), it’s worth a shot. Experiment with it and let me know how it turns out!
*Did you know cinnamon can reduce blood sugar levels? It’s been proven time after time in the research journals. So, adding a little bit of cinnamon to your (RARE!) sweet treats not only adds a bit of yumminess, but can also help improve your insulin sensitivity.
No-Churn Ice Cream: Variations
When using fruit to flavor this no-churn ice cream, I simply add a handful of the fresh fruits to a blender, then add the yogurt, egg yolks, and 1/4 C. sweetener to the carafe. After a couple of pulses in the blender, it’s all mixed up and ready to be folded into the whipped cream.
When making a vanilla version, I substitute 1/4 C. of palm sugar for the honey and add 2 T. vanilla extract.
When making a chocolate version, I add 4 T. of dutch cocoa to the yogurt base.
(photo by dishingupdelights)
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Ohhh wow, this is absolutely fantastic! I’m headed to the Market tonight, so I’m thinking i’ll work on it later!
Have you used yogurt with the fruit already in it? (ie: Stonyfield Organic Strawberry/Blueberry/Banana or their’ YoBaby) I’m going to follow your recipe exactly tonight, but I’m really looking forward to playing with the recipe!
Candace — No, I don’t usually buy flavored yogurts. I either make my own plain yogurt and add my own fruit, etc. OR I simply buy plain yogurt.
Kristin, this is excellent! I had a comment on my ice cream vlog yesterday about making ice cream without an ice cream maker – so I will link this post for those who want to give it a go but have no machine right now! Thanks for the great idea!
Just curious, is there some reason why the recipe uses only the egg yolks? Would it hurt anything to put the whites in?
It helps create that creamy, custard-like texture that I love in a good ice cream.
Also (although I often break this rule) you’re not supposed to eat egg whites raw. It can cause a decrease in biotin uptake, and even the protein in raw egg whites is less bioavailable than if cooked. My diet is rich enough in biotin (from liver, tomatoes, swiss chard, etc.) that I’m not too concerned about creating a biotin deficiency, so I’ll have raw egg whites in my smoothies, etc. without hesitation.
according to a chinese medicine egg whites gum up your liver. since we all have pretty intox liver, it’s probably best to avoid them altogether or reduce a lot. Yolks on the other hand are healthy. From Healing with whole foods by Pitchford
I’d love to see more info about how you do some of your other flavors. How exactly do you incorporate fruit flavors? Have you made a chocolate version?
Thanks for sharing this! I’m really looking forward to trying this.
Alissa: You’re right. I added variations above instead of just hinting at them!
Wow, I had no clue about the biotin thing! Thanks!
I adore your blog out of all the traditional diet blogs I found! Can’t wait to make this some day!
I do have an ice cream maker, but I just might have to try this. This is a good fall ice cream flavor. And it sounds so light!
I cant wait to give this a shot…sounds so good.
I’m thinking of trying this with molasses and pumpkin pie spices! I’m in love with those flavors right now, and blackstrap molasses is so good for you, too.
This sounds amazing! I love cinnamon in ice cream. i might add chopped crispy almonds on top!
Making ice cream for my daughter’s birthday on Sunday, but I think I’ll stick to the method I know this time around..and the cranking is a fun group activity. But what a fun idea for when you don’t have a churn, or feel like doin’ the work. : )
Could you use plain yogurt made from raw milk? I know it’s runnier, so I didn’t know if the consistency matters or just the content?
Thanks, and cannot wait to try this!
I’ve never tried it with raw milk yogurt. Let me know how it turns out.
I’m not sure where I should post a question on a different subject. Plus let me know if there is a better place for this. (BTW we have ordered your nutrition textbook, and are waiting for its arrival now. )
My 15 y.o. daughter has been non-meat-eating since she was four and saw a supermarket roasted chicken in its packaging! She does eat eggs (occasionally and not that willingly), milk and cheese, and bone broths. How can someone on the real food journey feed a non-meat-eating family member to the utmost health possible?
Thank you for any help!
She may be low in zinc. I lose my appetite for most foods when my zinc status drops too low. A few days of supplementing and I”m hungry for lots of good foods again. One tell tale sign is those white marks on the nails. I only had a few but my zinc was low enough that I wasn’t hungry and most foods (esp meats) didn’t sound good to me.
You can stabilize whipped cream with gelatin for frostings and such and I got to thinking that maybe this might work for this recipe if using raw yogurt or kefir since they have a runnier consistency. For this recipe you would sprinkle 2 tsps. unflavored powdered gelatin over 4 Tbls. cold water in a small pan. Don’t stir, but allow it to soak and absorb the water for about 5 minutes. Then heat it slowly until the gelatin dissolves completely. Allow it to cool to room temp. Whip cream until almost stiff, than add the gelatin all at once and continue whipping till medium peaks form…… then continue with the ice cream recipe…… this is what I am going to try but the amount of gelatin may have to be tweaked. You can also thicken cream and such using agar agar, but I don’t have any experience with that so I wouldn’t have any idea how to use it. We’ll see how the gelatin goes :))
What an interesting idea. After you’ve experimented, will you come back here and let me know how it turns out?
I’ve been lightly whipping the cream for my ice cream for ages because the added air also makes the ice cream easier to scoop after storing in the freezer. I store ice cream in my spare freezer, which is MUCH colder than the fridge freezer, about -15°F.
I love raw egg ice cream, too. It’s so must faster to mix up compared to cooking the custard, then letting it cool, and pre-chilling. I just stocked up on some very nice backyard eggs and raw cream, and I have a new batch of pumpkin butter in the fridge, so I think we’ll make some cinnamon pumpkin ice cream this weekend.
Goodness me!!!
That sounds so tasty and easy!!!!!! Gotta try it.
Thank you!
Great recipe! Thanks for sharing! Just want to add two thoughts. Re: the runny homemade yogurt. What if you just drain some of the whey off of it to make it thicker (without making it too thick)? As in, straining it through cheesecloth. Re: the alcohol. If you make homemade vanilla (vanilla bean and vodka or rum), a teaspoon of that works well also, though I don’t know how it would affect this particular recipe. ~ Karen
You can also ferment your cream before whipping it (kefir, yogurt, creme fresch). It still whips just the same and will have even more probiotic power in your finished ice cream. You might need a bit more sweetener because the cream will be sour instead of sweet but we love the flavor of fermented cream in our ice cream.
Amazing method! We do have a sort of ice-cream maker, but the amounts are so small that it’s not worth the effort. We will be trying this.
What? Anti-freeze? Yikes and double yikes. Thanks again for the education you provide on so many food subjects. I always learn something new here.
looks great. do you think Greek yogurt would work as the yogurt used?
That looks really tasty. Honey and cinnamon are favorites of mine too. I don’t use the latter that often because it tends to over-power the flavor of a dessert, but on ice cream it probably works well.
May I ask what you generally freeze the ice cream in? I have had trouble figuring this out for the ice cream I make in my machine too. I’m afraid to use pyrex because of the hazard of shattering glass, but I’m not sure what else is a safe container (BPA free, etc.) and also easy to scoop out of, safe for freezing. Any ideas?
I freeze ice cream and other things in glass containers, both pyrex and the special canning jars that are freezer safe. I learned the hard way because earl on I did have a jar break, but that was a narrow mouth jar. Just allow room for expansion and always use containers with straight sides and you will be fine.
I want to try this! I love ice cream, especially homemade, but hadn’t wanted to buy an ice cream maker…(another appliance). Thank you!
Okay, so I made this ice cream sans raw milk yogurt and with regular cream since I do not have access to raw cream. The cinnamon-honey flavor is amazing! However, I wanted to know if it’s just me, but is there supposed to be a waxy/oily taste after? I have never made homemade ice cream before and I’m thinking that I’m just used to the churned, processed consistency and flavor of the mass-produced ice cream. Hmmm…any suggestions???
I’ve never had a waxy/oily after taste. Either, as you say, your tastebuds aren’t trained to appreciate the “real” ice cream OR you’ve got an ingredient culprit in the brand of yogurt or cream you used. I’d to a taste test and freeze a little of both separately. Then I’d sample each frozen and see how they taste to determine if one of them, when frozen, develops that after taste.
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned this, but this does not have the texture of true ice cream. I tried it and it’s more like gelato. I can definitely see describing that different texture as “waxy.” Lots of people love gelato, so that’s not necessarily a bad thing…personally, I prefer ice cream. The “churned” texture is not a byproduct of mass production – in fact, homemade ice cream made with a hand-churned ice cream maker has, in my opinion, the most awesome, icy-creamy texture of all.
Now, I may have over-whipped the cream. But even without making that mistake, I can’t imagine this coming out with the same texture as ice cream…anybody had that experience?
YUMMO! This looks great. I don’t have an ice cream maker and my attempts at ice cream without one have been pitiful. I can’t wait to try this one. I just posted a link to this in my Weekly Recipe Wrap Up too. It’s too great not to share! 🙂
Thank you so much for this post (and your wonderful blog). It inspired me to make ice cream for the first time in my life! I do not have an ice cream maker, but am saving up for the kitchenaid attachment. It all appeared so simple – I had some spare raw cream, and all the other ingredients, and all went well until I tried to whip the cream in my kitchenaid mixer, then disaster! Instead of thickening up, it started to turn into butter! Why do you think this happened? Not wanting to waste it I quickly mixed it with the other ingredients and popped it in the freezer, but not doubt it will just turn out a solid brick with lumps of butter in it! I have never tried whipping raw cream before, is there a trick to it? I would be grateful for any tips as would like to try again but am loathe to waste the precious and expensive raw cream, especially as I don’t know what to do with the skim milk that’s left! Many thanks, and keep up the good work!
Hi Julia,
I don’t think the mistake had anything to do with the cream being raw. Raw cream whips just as well as other cream. I would recommend trying again, but this time to do the “safe” things to keep whipped cream from turning into butter: use a chilled stainless steel whipping bowl and whisk, don’t use the stand mixer (as that tends to overwhip cream almost immediately), use a wire whisk instead of beaters, if using a hand mixer start on low then gradually build up to medium and finish on high, etc.
Hope that helps!
I use a kitchenAid stand mixer to make whipped cream and butter. It is just that you let it whip too long if your whipped cream became butter. And the liquid left over is not skim milk but buttermilk.
I, too, am curious about yogurt. I’ve been following a candida program for the past 9 months and do not make nor buy yogurt. We do buy raw milk, however (for the family). Would it be better to make our own or could I just buy some yogurt? If buying, what am I looking for (as to ingredients)?
Thanks!
Karen, who is always game for a new ice cream recipe (tho i can’t have any!)
I buy mine more often than not, but that’s just because I’m lazy. I’d look for WHOLE MILK yogurt made from milk that’s free of antibiotics & hormones (that often means buying organic). You want a yogurt whose ingredients label is simple: whole milk, lactic-acid producing bacteria cultures. No added sugars, stabilizers, colors, fruit, etc.
First things first. Awesome recipe, thank you. However, I was shocked after I linked through your article to the article about antifreeze from Sarah’s Healthy Home Economist site. After reading her article I had some concerns about the “sources” she used. Here’s a copy of the reply to her article I posted on her site. It explains my arguments. I offer it to you for review because I think shady sourcing like those Sarah used undermines the true scientific merits of natural food activism, and makes natural foodies like me look like ignorant fanatics.
My reply to Sarah was as follows:
“” I consider myself a natural foods advocate and I oppose Propylene Glycol’s GRAS status because of it’s metabolic byproducts. After reading this article I was motivated to compile a list of ingredients exempted from labeling requirements on the basis of this article’s statement of “Industry Standard” exemptions; and then researching safety studies behind each such exempted ingredient. However after reviewing Title 21 CFR 101.100* I could not find the section that implies such an exemption the article describes. Therefore, I must respectfully request that the said attorney give clarification on the information sourced in this article.
In its completed form Title 21 CFR 101.100 subsection (a) paragraph (3) states “Incidental additives that are present in a food at insignificant levels and do not have any technical or functional effect in that food.” By definition Propylene Glycol as antifreeze in ice-cream does “have a technical and functional effect”. I cannot reconcile the article’s statements of “industry standard” exemptions and sourced Title 21 CFR 101.100. I respectfully request that the attorney help me understand, because as it is, I find my faith in food activism already shaken. “”
Two questions:
1) is the raw honey in the recipe the solid kind? That must take a while to blend with the eggs if so.
2) What do you store it and how long will it keep in the freezer?
I just made a batch to celebrate my first-ever trip to Whole Foods! Used my grass-fed cream, pastured eggs, and some strawberries; can’t wait! 🙂
This sounds so good. When you mention substituting 1/4 c palm sugar for honey in the vanilla version, do you mean totally omit the honey or subsitute 1/4 c palm sugar for 1/4 c of the honey? Thanks
I mean totally omit the honey, and use palm sugar instead.
I’m confused about this because usually you would use half as much honey as cane sugar because honey is sweeter than cane sugar. I haven’t used palm sugar before. Is palm sugar sweeter than honey and that’s why you use twice as much?
I tried it with raw milk yogart and it was too runy Nice but runy.
Delicious!!! This is such a treat! We’ve stopped eating most packaged foods to avoid preservatives and the like, but we buy chocolate ice cream once a month, a natural brand. But this is superior, in my opinion! So creamy and smooth. I’d add more cocoa next time, because it was just lightly chocolate flavored.
My husband hates yogurt (gags at the tiniest hint of it in things), so he didn’t like the yogurt here. I couldn’t taste it at all, but he noticed immediately. Would this work with something else as a substitute? Milk or more cream? Or is the yogurt needed for its thick texture?
I have looked everywhere among grocery stores and even our local farmers market and i cannot find raw cream, or even butter. i dont want to use the whipping cream 35% at our grocery store because its full of crap like sugar, additives and preservatives. since i dont have a car the local market was my only option and i have to walk very far to get there and back. so i was disappointed today. i abandoned the ice cream project at the grocery store tonight because i didnt want to get the cream crap. just wondering, is there a certain percentage of milk fat needed for cream anyway? was it the 35% kind, or could you use something less if you had to?
also did you mix by hand or with an electric mixer? and for how long? ive never whipped anything before.
also… was it liquid honey you used or the solid kind?
The organic cream I am able to buy from Trader Joe’s is pasteurized, but the only kind I could find not Ultra-pasteurized. The only ingredient is cream and it does not give a percentage of milk fat. I was under the impression cream IS the milk-fat. The other kinds of so-called whipping cream do not contain just cream, but milk and cornstarch or another thickener among other things like carrageenan etc. Therefore, if you find true heavy cream it should be the only ingredient and I do not believe it should have a milk fat percentage.
P.S. making whipped cream is a cinch, can’t believe I ever bought it.
If you have an electric mixer it only takes a minute or two to whip cream to soft billowing goodness. Good luck!
I am very interested in your ice cream recipe but please could you clarify the quantity abbreviations for a mere english person who is used to ounces or grams. C = cups I guess and is T a teaspoonful or tablespoonful? Look forward to having a go as I love good quality decent ice cream. Thanks
When looking up recipes on American sites, these standard abbreviations apply:
T. = tablespoon
t. = teaspoon
C. = cup
You may also see some sites that try to avoid confusion by using tbsp.=tablespoon and tsp.= teaspoon.
Hi~ love the recipe… love honey and cinnamon! I am vegan, though… do you have to use the eggs? Can you use a substiute? I usually use ground flax seeds as egg substitute… any ideas? Thank you!
Hey Jess I think sweet potato is a egg sub also–could add a yummy flavor too..?!
Very eager to try this but wondering if you can swap the yogurt for kefir? Thats what I usually have around..
thnx!
How will this turn out without the raw eggs — I just can’t handle raw eggs!!!!!
This turned into a big solid chunk that flakes into pieces, possibly because I skipped the eggs?
I think you need to get some real cinnamon instead of cassia bark. Apart from the occasional spike in coumarin, most cassia bark is air dried with the application of fungicides and insecticides as a normal procedure.
Sounds to good not to share, so sharing!
I love this recipie for its whole food ingredients…..and the flavor is amazing!! But I can’t get it to a nice consistency once I freeze it. It has an ice crystal feel to it. And it seems to freezer very hard and is not easy to scoop. Any pointers? I am sooo glad excited to find a no-churn recipie without sweetened condensed milk….. I hope I can get it to work for me.
This sounds great, but I’m wondering why you are using yogurt? Freezing UT kills the beneficial bacteria.
I have an extrA cup of Kefir Grains. Have you ever tried to incorporate them into a” ice cream” type food. ?
your comments will be valued..