My Cookie Dough Ice Cream is a brown butter and brown sugar ice cream base studded with dark chocolate. If you’re a closet cookie dough fiend, you’ve just found your fix!
My mission was to create an ice cream that tastes exactly like everybody’s favorite forbidden pleasure ~ chocolate chip cookie dough ~ in a frozen, refreshing form. Cookie dough ice cream gives you that same great flavor and texture, without all the guilt. So scoop away ~ you can have your cookie dough and eat it too!
Why is cookie dough so tempting?
- The combination of creamy butter, grainy sugar, and soft flour creates a delightful, melt-in-your-mouth texture.
- Many people have fond childhood memories of baking and sneaking tastes of the dough.
- Some think it’s because of the forbidden factor: cookie dough tastes so good because we have to sneak it. And since the recent warnings about the possible dangers of eating raw flour, cookie dough has become doubly forbidden.
- Pssssst: Nestlé just quietly released a new edible cookie dough made with heat treated flour.
Brown butter and brown sugar lend toasty, caramel-y notes to a traditional custard ice cream base. Since we are, ahem, adding a whole stick of butter to an ice cream recipe, I took the cream-to-milk ratio down a notch from a typical ice cream ratio to cut the richness a bit. But make no mistake, this ice cream is still creamy, dreamy, and plenty rich! I also added a tablespoon of molasses to boost the color and brown-sugary flavor of this ice cream, but you can leave it out if you’d like.
Boozy cookie dough ice cream?
I couldn’t resist adding a touch of whiskey for a final warm layer of flavor. Alcohol can also lower the melting point of your ice cream, making it a bit softer and easier to scoop once frozen. This is totally optional, though, and the recipe will work fine without it. Note: next time I might try using more whiskey 🙂 Here are some other boozy ice cream recipes on the blog…
- Plum Amaretto Sorbet
- Raspberry Champagne Sorbet
- Irish Whiskey Ice Cream
- The Frozen Turkey Adult Cocktail Milkshake
- Amaretto Poppy Seed Ice Cream
- The Hummer Cocktail
The brown butter and brown sugar base is excellent on its own and would be amazing scooped over any and all fruit crumbles, cobblers, and pies this summer. I love how you can see the little specks of brown butter in the finished ice cream. I may have to make it again just to serve with my first apple pie of fall.
How to make brown butter for cookie dough ice cream:
- Place your butter in a saucepan over medium heat until melted.
- Continue to heat the butter, stirring occasionally, until the butter solids separate from the butter and begin to brown and caramelize. This should only take a couple minutes or so.
- You’re looking for a rich brown color and a nutty, caramel-ly smell. Watch it carefully so it doesn’t burn.
- That’s it, you’ve made brown butter!
I recommend chopping your chocolate fairly fine, since large chunks chocolate can get pretty hard once frozen. I used dark chocolate, but feel free to use whatever you like in your cookies. Toasted nuts like walnuts or pecans would be fantastic, too.
Featured comment
“Oh. My. Fat. Butt!!! This is AWESOME!!!!! I had to try this once I read the unique ingredients. I added pecans for a little more nuttiness. THANKS!!!” ~ J
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Cookie Dough Ice Cream
Equipment
- ice cream maker
- freezer safe container
Ingredients
- 4 egg yolks
- 3/4 cup dark brown sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 Tbsp molasses, optional
- 8 Tbsp unsalted butter
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- 2 cups whole milk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 Tbsp whiskey, optional
- 3/4 cup finely chopped dark chocolate
Instructions
- Whisk the egg yolks, dark brown sugar, salt, and molasses in a medium, heat resistant bowl, and set aside.
- Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat and continue to cook until the solids turn a dark, rich brown. Watch it carefully so it doesn’t burn!
- Slowly pour the brown butter over the egg yolk mixture, whisking to combine.
- In the same saucepan you used to brown the butter, heat the cream and just 1 cup of the milk (reserve the rest of the milk), until just about to boil. It should be starting to bubble around the edges.
- Pour a small amount of the hot cream mixture into your egg yolk mixture and whisk to temper the eggs.
- Pour the egg yolk mixture back into the saucepan with the cream mixture, whisking constantly as you pour.
- Cook over medium heat, whisking frequently, until it has thickened a bit and will coat the back of a spoon.
- Pour the cooked custard over the remaining cup of milk, through a strainer if you’d like to filter out any small bits of cooked egg.
- Add the vanilla extract, and whiskey, and stir to combine.
- Cool the mixture completely, preferably overnight.
- Process in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Add your finely chopped chocolate to the ice cream machine when the ice cream is almost done. You want it to mix in evenly, so add it in about a minute or so before you stop the machine.
- Pour your finished ice cream in a freezer safe container, top with more chopped chocolate if you’d like, and enjoy! It will be best eaten within a day or two of making.
Nutrition
SUCH a good recipe. Thank you!!
I just got my ice cream maker today and I’ve got two recipes picked out, one for me, and one for my husband. Both say to cool the custard mixture completely (which I inderstand), but should I do this in the fridge or freezer? Just covered and on the counter top? I’m rather impatient and don’t really want to wait overnight if I don’t have to ?
Cool it the fastest way you can, fridge or freezer works. Some people make an ice bath to get the temp down initially.
Tastes like toffee not cookie dough. Not worth it
Sorry it wasn’t to your taste Lulu.
I am going to make some homemade ice cream tomorrow. The recipe seems great. I can’t understand why there isn’t cookie dough flavored ice cream available to be bought at supermarkets.
I think it’s probably because of the stigma attached to eating raw cookie dough. This recipe gets around all that!
Glen: There are numerous brands of ice cream that have a cookie dough flavor (such as Ben and Jerry’s). Try looking at the brands that come in the smaller containers and have lots of different flavors.
Oh. My. Fat. Butt!!! This is AWESOME!!!!! I had to try this once I read the unique ingredients. I added pecans for a little more nuttiness. THANKS!!!
Glad you liked it J!!
I saw this recipe and was so excited to try it out! But then I read through the instructions, and realized you need to own an ice cream maker to do it.
Is there any way of getting around that step and still making it work?
Hey Christine, there are a lot of “no churn” ice cream recipes on my blog, but this one does require a machine. If you give me a few days I may be able to offer a no churn alternative in this post!
This looks yummy but can’t do the eggs due to an egg allergy. Ben and Jerry’s has new cookie dough frozen chunks that according to my daughter taste like like the chunks in their ice cream.
This stopped me in my tracks on instagram, it looks AMAZING!
I’m pinning this to make soon! I adore cookie dough flavors and know this ice cream will be an instant favorite. Thanks for the recipe!