You don’t need any special equipment or an ice cream maker to make ice cream at home. This 2 ingredient recipe gives you a smooth and silky vanilla ice cream, but you can also use it to customize your own flavors!

* This post was updated in 2021 with new photos 🙂

There’s only one downside to making your own ice cream from scratch: you have to wait for it to freeze.

That’s over 4 hours of waiting.

But it. is. so. worth it!

This ice cream is not only incredibly easy to make, it comes together quickly and made with only 2 ingredients! ANNNND NO ICE CREAM MACHINE NEEDED!!

Because how many of us actually have an ice cream machine? And compare that number to how many of us crave ice cream. I’m willing to bet my coin collection that more of us crave it.

This tastes just as good, if not better, than store bought ice cream. And even better, you can customize it and make any flavor you’d like!

For a stronger vanilla flavor, you can add a teaspoon of vanilla extract or the seeds of 1 vanilla bean to this ice cream base. I find that the flavor is fantastic either way, so you can get away with including it or leaving it out. I didn’t include vanilla this time.

Ice cream texture:

How you whip your cream will decide the final texture of your ice cream. If you whip the cream to a softer peak, once frozen, the ice cream will be a bit more solid and icy. Cream whipped to a stiff peak will result in a softer and smoother ice cream with fewer ice crystals.

Depending on how solid you like your ice cream, you can choose to go either route. Just make sure you’re careful when whipping the cream so it doesn’t over whip. We don’t want butter, THANK YOU very much.

Ice cream flavors and serving:

This recipe can be used to make a number of different flavors. Since it’s so simple, you can customize it to almost any type of ice cream! Here are some ways you can change this recipe up:

• Add 1/3 cup of cocoa powder to make chocolate ice cream. Mix the cocoa powder into the condensed milk before adding to the cream to avoid clumps.
• Add about 1 cup of chopped nuts to the ice cream base to add some crunch in between bites. You can add more or less depending on taste. If the nut you choose is too heavy, it may sink to the bottom. So you can add some ice cream base to your freezer container, top with nuts, add more ice cream base, and top with nuts again to create layers.
• Break up some edible cookie dough and add chocolate chips to make chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream!
• Blend some berries into a puree (about 1/2 a cup). Mix the puree into the ice cream base before freezing to make various fruit flavors (blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, strawberry ice creams).
• Swirl some different sauces into the ice cream base. Add half of your ice cream base to your container, top with some sauce (like caramel, berry, or fudge sauce), top with more ice cream base. Using a knife, gentle swirl the ice cream around to mix slightly.
• Top with fresh fruits, candy, sprinkles, chopped nuts, melted chocolate or whole chocolate pieces, or just serve plain in a bowl or ice cream cone! You can even make an ice cream sandwich by scooping some ice cream in between 2 cookies.

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2 Ingredient Vanilla Ice Cream Recipe

You don't need any special equipment to make ice cream at home. This 2 ingredient ice cream gives you a smooth and silky vanilla ice cream, but you can even use it to customize your own flavors!

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 0 minutes

Total Time 4 hours 5 minutes

Servings 1 pint

Ingredients

• 2 cups whipping cream, cold
• 1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

Instructions

• In a large bowl, using a mixer fitted with a whip attachment, whip your heavy cream until it reaches a stiff peak.
• Add your sweetened condensed milk to the whipped cream. Gently fold the condensed milk into the cream to incorporate. Take care not to over mix, which may cause your cream to deflate.
• Transfer the ice cream mix to an airtight, freezer-safe container. Smooth the top top. Cover with a lid and freeze for 4 to 6 hours, or overnight, before serving.

Video

Enjoy!