Yum, home-made ice cream! I have been wanting to make this for a while, but since I don’t have an ice-cream maker at home it seemed like a more challenging task than I was up for. Luckily I got to visit my parents and brother/sister-in-law this weekend and spend some quality time with my 8-year old niece and 12-year old nephew as well as my family’s ice cream maker.

This recipe is really easy and taken straight from the ice-cream maker’s recipe book so I can’t take much credit for doing anything special. But it came out so delicious and I got to do some fun “cooking” with my adorable nephew and niece so its worth posting!

We start by getting the ingredients ready. We chose to use chocolate chips as our mix-in. Our runner’s up were oreo’s, strawberries, M&M’s, and reese’s peanut butter cups.

We combine all of the ingredients in a bowl, and then freeze the mixture overnight. This required us to demonstrate an enormous amount of patience.

The next morning, my nephew was ready to finish the ice cream at 7am! We poured it the mixture into the ice cream maker.

After about 15 minutes, we fold in the chocolate chips.

Two hours later, it was time to make ice cream sundae’s! We just used chocolate syrup and some mini-cookies for garnish. Home-made ice cream is so fresh and simple to make, its a winner! We made chocolate-oreo ice cream the next day 🙂

Prep time: 24 hours  Cook Time: 3 hours

Serves: about 8 bowls of ice cream

Ingredients: 

• 1 cup whole milk
• ¾ cup granulated sugar
• pinch salt
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 bag mini-chocolate chip cookies
• Chocolate syrup

Recipe:

1. Freeze the ice cream maker bowl until ready to use (about 4-5 hours).
2. In a medium bowl, combine all of the ingredients except the chocolate chip cookies and syrup. Whisk together until smooth.
3. Freeze the mixture for a few hours or overnight.
4. Pour the mixture into the ice cream maker bowl and turn the machine on (follow-machine directions).  After about 15 minutes, fold in the chocolate chip cookies.
5. Combine for 5 minutes more, then remove ice cream from maker.
6. Freeze for about 2 hours.
7. Garnish with chocolate syrup and cookies and enjoy!