Ice cream with mix-ins is a summer staple in this house. This cookie-berry ice cream is a great addition to your recipe repertoire. Fruit ice creams are often great just on their own, but sometimes you want a little more oomph.
Like many of the recipes on this site, I am writing for more of the technical ice cream aficionado. This isn’t to say you can’t make this recipe at home (I do!) just that there are a few ingredients not considered pantry staples.
Making the best ice cream is a science, not an art. This is why you will see quite of math down below. I promise you this. If you stick through it, you will have one of the best ice creams you have ever made.
And you might be thinking, well, this is a fruit ice cream. Which is true. So couldn’t you make this with any fruit like strawberry or lemon as the base and add whatever mix-ins you want? And that answer is ‘it depends’. All fruits are a mix of water, sugar, and other solids. So please, think of this recipe as a guide – but try not to vary too much unless you are experienced in calculating different densities of fruit and liquids.
Each recipe on this site is perfected through trial and error. This explains the low number of posts over the age of the site. It is possible to change things but be aware that some variables may affect the end result.
So let’s start the walk through for this delicious cookie-berry ice cream (Blackberry base with Belvita biscuits).
What You’ll Need
As with all of my ice cream recipes on Scoops of Delight, you need an ice cream machine. The exact style and brand does not matter too much but you do want one that is decent quality. I personally use the Smeg ice cream maker. The only issue with it is that you need to already have a Smeg stand mixer – which can be quite pricey. While there are plenty of recipes for no-churn ice creams, I often find a properly churned ice cream magnitudes better.
Some other things you will need for this homemade ice cream recipe are:
- Mixing Bowls
- Whisk
- Steel Pans (I personally find steel the best for making ice cream, but you can use any as long as you are careful about the temperature.
- Rubber Spatula
- Sealable Container (The best thing to use to store homemade ice cream is plastic or foam in my opinion. You want something that is more flat than tall as it provides more surface area to quickly freeze in a home freezer).
- Kitchen Scale (optional, but recommended). Almost all of my recipes use metric. It is more precise than imperial for most home cooks.
How To Make Cookie Berry Ice Cream
This recipe involves 10 ingredients, 9 of which are for the blackberry base. This ice cream is pretty standard for technical recipes. Most ingredients can be purchased from your local baking-supply store. The mix-ins for this recipe are broken up Belvita breakfast biscuits. However, you can substitute them with something more easily accessible if need be.
Ingredients
600 grams Blackberries – You can use fresh or frozen
50 ml Bergamot Lemon Juice – If this ingredient is difficult to find you can use regular lemon juice.
350 ml Milk (3.5%)
200 ml Cream (32%) – You can use Heavy Cream (36%) if it is all you can find, but I do try to limit the cream in fruit based recipes*
50 grams Sucrose – Table sugar
50 grams Dextrose – This is also a sugar, but it has 90% of the sweetness of sucrose, with 190% of the anti-freeze density
28 grams Skim Milk Powder – This ingredient adds fat to the recipe. It does so without the negative effect of extra liquid. Extra liquid can create crystals and make for an ‘icy’ ice cream.
1 gram CMC – This is carbomethylcellulose, a common stabilizer which helps with lowering the freeze-point and increasing mouth-feel
1 gram Guar Gum – Similar to CMC, guar acts in tangent to balance out the negative aspects of the former in the finished product.
200 grams (give or take) Belvita Breakfast Biscuits – You can substitute another mix in if you like, but cookies are a good option in this recipe.
* Believe it or not, this is considered a low-fat ice cream. Fat provides creaminess. However, it can also mask the flavor of delicate fruits. For this recipe, I tried to keep the fat to a lower percentage. The fat in this recipe comes out to 8.9% which is a lot lower than most ice creams and more similar to gelato.
Method
The first step in this recipe is to reduce the blackberries. As mentioned above, fruits are very high in water and we want to get rid of as much as possible. In a pan add the 600 grams of berries along with the 50ml of lemon juice. On medium-high heat reduce about 75%. This is fairly impossible to get 100% correct, but close works in this case.
Reduce the mixture as much as you can. Then, strain the finished jam through a mesh sieve. This will remove the seeds.
Start Weight: 650 grams
End Weight: 178 grams
The best part about this recipe is there is no more cooking involved. No eggs nor stabilizers that need heat mean you can go right ahead and make the base.
I suggest mixing the stabilizers with the sugars and milk powder to disperse them. Then in a large bowl whisk together the berry puree, milk, and cream until you have a homogeneous mixture.
Next whisk in the sugar mixture. Make sure to whisk continuously so everything gets dissolved and mixed evenly. Move to a container and place in the fridge to chill for at least 4 hours (better overnight).
Total weight: 858 grams
After the base has had time to chill it is ready to churn. Set up your ice cream machine and add the base. Let run for 25-30 minutes, or until you reach soft serve consistency.
While the machine is running you can break up the cookies. I suggest doing this over a mesh sieve as well, as you want to add the pieces without the dust.
Once the ice cream reaches ‘done’ consistency, add 80% of the cookie pieces. Let it run for another minute until mixed.
With the churning and cookies, the volume of the ice cream nearly doubles to 1.5 liters. Move the freshly churned ice cream to a container (I like my 1.5 liter foam Tetra-pack) and sprinkle over the remaining cookie pieces. Cover with the lid and place in the freezer to solidify overnight.
Science!
| Milk Fat % | 3.5 | |||||
| Cream Fat % | 32 | |||||
| Fruit Sugar %* | 17 | |||||
| Fruit (other) Solids %* | 27 | |||||
| Weight (grams) | Fat (grams) | MSNF (grams) | Sugar (grams) | Other Solids (grams) | Total Solids (grams) | |
| Milk | 350 | 12 | 30.4 | 42.7 | ||
| Cream | 200 | 64 | 12 | 76.2 | ||
| Sucrose | 50 | 50 | 50 | |||
| Dextrose | 50 | 50 | 50 | |||
| SMP | 28 | 26.88 | 28 | |||
| Fruit | 178 | 30.26 | 30.26 | |||
| Stabilizer | 2 | 1.9 | 1.9 | |||
| Total (grams) | 858 | 76 | 70 | 130 | 2 | 279 |
| Total % | 8.9 | 8.1 | 15.2 | .2 | 32.5 |
*Fruit Sugar and Other Solids have been pre-calculated based on available dietary information
Table adapted from the ice cream calculator on Dream Scoops!
Why Does This Cookie-Berry Ice Cream Recipe Avoid Eggs?
Eggs are a very popular ingredient in high quality ice creams, specifically the yolks. Yet they should not be used in every situation. While they make a fantastic French Vanilla, they have a negative effect when fresh fruits are involved.
I decided to omit the use of eggs. I felt that egg yolks masked the delicate flavor of blackberry.
Cookie-berry Ice Cream (Blackberry & Belvita)
Equipment
- 1 Ice Cream Machine
- 1 Whisk
- 1 Sieve
- 1 Pan
- 1 Kitchen Scale (optional)
- 1 Sealable Container
- Mixing Bowls
Ingredients
- 600 grams Blackberries You can use fresh or frozen
- 50 ml Bergamot Lemon Juice If this ingredient is difficult to find you can use regular lemon juice.
- 350 ml Milk 3.5%
- 200 ml Cream 32% – You can use Heavy Cream (36%) if it is all you can find, but I do try to limit the cream in fruit based recipes*
- 50 grams Sucrose Table sugar
- 50 grams Dextrose This is also a sugar but it has 90% of the sweetness of sucrose, with 190% of the anti-freeze density
- 28 grams Skim Milk Powder This ingredient adds fat to the recipe without the negative of extra liquid which can create crystals and make for an ‘icy’ ice cream.
- 1 gram CMC This is carbomethylcellulose a common stabilizer which helps with lowering the freeze-point and increasing mouth-feel
- 1 gram Guar Gum Similar to CMC guar acts in tangent to balance out the negative aspects of the former in the finished product.
- 200 grams Belvita Breakfast Biscuits You can substitute another mix in if you like, but cookies are a good option in this recipe.
Instructions
- Add the berries and lemon juice to a pan on medium high heat. Stir until reduced by about 75%. Strain to remove seeds into a large bowl.
- Combine the sucrose, dextrose, SMP, and stabilizers. In the main bowl add the milk and cream and whisk to combine. Sprinkle in the dry mix until everything is homogenous. Place mix in fridge to chill at least 4 hours, or overnight.
- Set up ice cream machine and add the blackberry base. Let churn for 25-30 minutes. In the meantime break up the cookies.
- In the last minute or so of churning add in 80% of cookies pieces and let run until mixed.
- Pour ice cream mix into a sealable container and sprinkle over the remainder of the cookie pieces. Cover and place in freezer overnight.
