Homemade Ice Cream Bars

These irresistible soft, smooth, creamy, homemade ice cream bars are perfect for a hot summer’s day. Easy to make and no churning required.

It’s summer, it’s boiling hot and there’s nothing better than an ice cream to cool things down. The middle is made up of a soft creamy centre, then a yummy flavour layer such as: Nutella, passion fruit, raspberry, coffee, salted caramel, blueberry, peanut or Biscoff to name a few. Then they are dipped into chocolate and covered in any multitude of toppings. I have used nuts, chocolate and biscuits, but the fun part is the options are endless!

They are great for making ahead and having at hand in the freezer!

If you decide to give this recipe a try, let me know! Leave a comment below and rate it – it’s really helpful to me and the other readers. And don’t forget to take a picture and tag it #thegourmetlarder on Instagram. I love seeing what you come up with! 🙂

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RECIPE HIGHLIGHTS

• EASE: easy, using just six ingredients and no churning required.
• FREE FROM: this recipe is gluten-free. For vegan options, please refer to my substitutions section.
• GREAT FOR: fun making with kids, no-bake, BBQ, friends and family visiting.
• TASTE & TEXTURE: a light, soft, smooth creamy ice cream, with a multitude of fillings and decoration ideas.
• QUANTITY: 4 x 90ml ice creams.
• TIME: 2 hours 10 minutes, plus 2 hours freezing.

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INGREDIENTS

For this recipe all you need are these ingredients:

• Whipping or double cream – is high in fat and will help make this ice cream deliciously smooth and creamy.

• Sweetened condensed milk – is cow’s milk which has had around 60% of the water removed and sweetened with sugar to create a thick custard like cream.

• Evaporated milk – is in fact almost the same as condensed milk without the addition of sugar, but because of its high concentration of milk solids, it helps to give ice cream that rich, smooth, creamy, custardy texture and taste.

• Vanilla paste – adds a delicious flavour and enhances the other ingredient flavours.

– Vanilla recommendations: pure vanilla extract or vanilla paste or vanilla pods.

• Fillings – with so many to choose from, take a look at my recipe and the variations section for ideas.

• Chocolate – is used to dip the ice creams in and give them that classic magnum look.

Chocolate recommendations: bars – Lindt Excellence dark 70% bar 100g, Montezuma’s darkside 51% bar 90g, Menier dark cooking chocolate 100g, Green and Black’s Organic dark Chocolate 100g, 1kg bags – Callebaut dark chocolate, Callebaut milk chocolate, Callebaut white chocolate.

TIP: I highly recommend adding a good pinch of salt to your sweet creations. Salt helps balance out the sweetness and richness. It also elevates the other ingredients, bring out the best characteristics of the recipe. In a seemingly absurd or contradictory way, salt intensifies the mouth’s ability to taste sweetness. Sodium sends signals to move glucose into the sweet taste receptor cells in our tongue, triggering the cells to register sweetness. The result is that salt not only alerts our ‘salt sensitivity’, but also our ‘sweet sensitive’ taste buds.
I recommend Maldon Sea salt flakes or Cornish sea salt.

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SUBSTITUTIONS

While I am making recommendations for alternative ingredients, I haven’t necessarily tried them. If you try making any adaptions, I would love to know how you get on and share it with the other readers.

VEGAN OPTIONS

• Cream: I recommend the Coconut Collaborative double cream or Elmlea plant based double cream.

• Condensed milk: I recommend Natures Charm coconut condensed milk and Carnation Condensed oat milk.

• Evaporated suggestion: I recommend Natures Charm evaporated oat milk. Most can be found in large supermarkets and online.

• Chocolate: There are now quite a few brands making vegan chocolate to choose from, such as these bars – Lindt classic milk chocolate, Ombar 55% coco mylk, Ombar 72% dark chocolate, Happi plain oat milk, Happi white chocolate, Montezuma’s Fitzroy 74% dark cocoa.

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WHAT VARIATIONS CAN I MAKE?

Here are a few other flavour ideas:

• Extra dark – add two tablespoons of cocoa powder to the ice cream mixture and dip in dark chocolate.

Cocoa recommendations: Dr. Oetker fine dark cocoa powder or not as dark – Sevenhills wholefoods organic cacao powder

• Mint – use a dark chocolate coating, and add mint extract to the ice cream base.

• Coffee – heat half the evaporated milk and add one teaspoon of instant coffee powder to it prior to mixing with the other ingredients in the ice cream base.

• Spices – try adding 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon, cardamom or nutmeg to the ice cream base.

• Citrus – for a bit of zing, add finely zested lemon, lime, or orange to the ice cream base. Alternatively, citrus oils are great for this.

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NUTRITION

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STORAGE AND FREEZING

Freezing: These homemade magnum ice creams can conveniently be stored in the freezer and taken out as you want to enjoy them. Store in the freezer for up to 3 months.

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TOOLS YOU’LL NEED

Here is a list of some kitchen tools that I use and recommend for this recipe.

• Braun MultiQuick 5 Immersion blender Black 1000 W

This is one machine that I use almost everyday. I find its multifunctional abilities very useful. I can use it to mix batters or cream liquids together and because its small I can use it to ground nuts and make fruit puree.

• Pyrex Measuring Jug 500ml | Capacity 568ml / 20 ounce 
• Pyrex Glass Measuring Jug, 1L

I think I have said it before that I am not a big fan of plastic, so I like this type of glass measuring jug for calculating my liquids.

• Philips Series 5000 Blender, ProBlend Crush Technology, Powerful 1000 W Motor, 2L Capacity, Easy Clean, Multiple Speeds + Pulse Function

If you don’t have a hand blender then this is the kind of machine you need. I have to admit that it is probably the least used machine in the kitchen, but its handy for large quantities of liquids such as soups, puree or ice cream.

• Ice Lolly Moulds Silicone 2 x 4 Cavity Ice Lolly Makers with 100 Sticks, Food Grade BPA Free Ice Cream Mould for frozen Popsicle

These are easy to use moulds that make you look lie a pro at ice cream making.

The Gourmet Larder is an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

TIP: I highly recommend using metric measurements and a digital kitchen scale, rather than cup measurements. If you have ever ended up with dry, dense or crumbly baked goods, it might be because of inaccurate volume measurements, not all measuring cups are made equally. All my recipes on this blog are carefully developed so that you can easily recreate them in your own kitchen with success, using metric measurements. It is also a lot easier, less messy and you will get far better, consistent results. 🙂
If you are interested in understanding conversions, here you will find the best conversion chart.

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RECIPE TIPS

When making the ice cream – I like to use a measuring jug as it can be used to pour out easily into the moulds and keeps the washing-up down to a minimum. I also find using a stick blender is ideal for whisking the cream and combining all the other ingredients together.

Whisking the ice cream base and why it’s important – We want the ice crystals during freezing to be as small as possible, the bigger the crystals the more grainy the texture. Ensuring we get as much air into the cream prior to freezing will give us that ultimate creamy texture we all love in ice cream.

Why we use condensed milk – We want to keep the water content down to a bear minimum, to avoid large ice crystals forming as mentioned above. Hence we use products like cream and condensed milk which have high fat content and break down more easily.

Why we use vanilla paste and not extracts – is down to minimising the water content as mentioned previously above.

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