No churn blackberry ice cream made right in your food processor ~ this easy method for homemade ice cream is genius (and delicious!)
blackberry ice cream without an ice cream maker
Everybody loves homemade ice cream, but not everybody has or wants an ice cream machine. I get it, it can take up limited kitchen space, especially if you only get the urge for homemade ice cream a couple of times a year.
what you’ll need
- heavy cream
- milk
- sugar
- vanilla
- blackberries ~ the blackberries need to be frozen, so you can freeze fresh berries or buy them already frozen. I vote for freezing fresh summer berries for fabulous results.
the no churn food processor method for making ice cream
I came across this idea here and decided to give it a try. It basically replaces the ice cream machine with the more common kitchen tool, the food processor. Here’s the gist:
- Combine your ice cream mixture as usual: mix cream, milk, sugar, and flavoring together until the sugar dissolves.
- Transfer it to a large heavy duty zip lock baggie.
- Place the baggie flat on a baking sheet and freeze until solid.
- Break up the frozen cream mixture and process in a food processor until smooth.
- Blend in frozen berries until smooth.
- Spread into a pan and freeze until ready to enjoy.
variations on no churn blackberry ice cream
There’s lots of delicious options possible with this basic concept. The most obvious is to change up the fruit. Any berry will work beautifully, and bananas will make an especially creamy ice cream. Try swapping out the cream for a whole milk yogurt, or the sugar for honey. Lots of options!
I’m continually amazed at what the food processor can do. And at the incredible ingenuity of people who love ice cream 🙂 You’ll want to keep your food processor front and center on your counter all season long.
more no churn ice cream ideas!
- No Churn Bailey’s Ice Cream
- No Churn Wild Blueberry Frozen Yogurt
- Ballymaloe No Churn Vanilla Ice Cream
- No Churn Cranberry Ice Cream
- No Churn Pumpkin Spice Ice Cream
Easy No Churn Blackberry Ice Cream
Equipment
- full sized food processor I use this model
Ingredients
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 3/4 cups sugar
- 1 cup milk
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 12 ounces frozen blackberries
Instructions
- Mix the heavy cream and sugar in a saucepan and heat until the sugar dissolves. Take off the heat and add the milk and vanilla. Update: You can skip the stove and just stir the sugar into the cream, it will dissolve more slowly than if you heat it up, but it will dissolve.
- Cool the mixture and then pour it into a gallon sized zip lock bag. You can set the bag in a bowl to make this easier. Close the bag securely and lay it flat on a baking sheet. Put it in the freezer and freeze solid. I left mine overnight.
- Cut open the bag and break up the mixture into pieces. I used a knife to cut off chunks. Put them in a food processor and process until smooth. This will take a couple of minutes. Scrape down the machine and redistribute the chunks a few times to help your machine out.
- When the machine runs freely and the ice cream is smooth,
- Add in the frozen berries. The machine will take a while, but it will eventually get all the berries pureed into the ice cream. Redistribute the berries a few times during the process.
- Scrape the ice cream into a loaf pan and smooth it out. Cover with foil and place back in the freezer until firm enough to scoop.
- Scoop and enjoy (then start dreaming up your next batch!)
Notes
Nutrition
Wow, this looks delicious! I have your recipe sitting in my freezer overnight. Can’t wait to see how it turns out! We had to add a few strawberries, as we had picked blackberries from our garden just 2 days before. Thanks for the recipe 🙂
Wow, the combination of berries sounds amazing…and I bet the color is gorgeous too!
This is an amazing recipe, thanks! I used nutella instead of the blackberries (around 200g with half the cream and milk) and it was gorgeous – very thick and creamy. I found you don’t even need a food processor with the nutella – simply mix all the ingredients in a saucepan and leave to freeze
Wow that sounds good Dan!!
Dan you’ve just given me an amazing idea. I’m not a fan of Nutella but I LOVE Biscoff. I’m going to give it a try. Think I’ll add some smashed Biscoff biscuits for a little crunch factor. My mouth is actually watering right now, lol…
I cannot find heavy cream, just heavy whipping cream, so do I use the whipping cream?
Yes, that’s fine, Camille.
Can I use a sugar substitute in the ice cream recipe?
I’m sure you can Kaycie.
Are you subbing the coconut milk for the cream, or the milk in this recipe?
This is a great, easy and fun recipe. I put the cream mixture in ice cube trays to make it easier, but cleaning oily trays after use may negate that! I really enjoyed the texture and appearance of the ice cream and plan to use it as my standard base. I used 2% milk and found it plenty rich. I found the vanilla flavor took over the blackberry flavor, when I do it again, I will probably omit it unless I’m making vanilla. (Which by the way, was amazingly good. The seeds turned out to be a problem for us, next time I will strain them. I plan on trying coffee, mango, peach, etc. I will let everyone in on what I learn. Thanks again!
In the post you mentioned trying this with almond or coconut milk. I was just wondering if you had and if so how it turned out.
I haven’t tried it, Devra, but I think coconut milk would work if you use the full fat kind.
Has anyone tried freezing the mixture in ice trays instead of the ziplock bag? Wondering if that would work or be too thick.
You’d need a powerful blender or food processor, but it should work.
Thanks to your suggestion, I froze the cream mixture in ice trays because I thought cutting the mixture would be a pain, but I found 1) the mixture doesn’t freeze very hard anyway and 2) it fills two ice trays. When I try this again, I will try the bag method and compare.
It looks fantastic! One question though- how many cups does your food processor hold?
14 cups.
Why wouldn’t you just process thawed berries with the cream mixture in the beginning? Would you recommend thawing the berries and mashing through a sieve/ricing to get rid of the seeds?
Hi Lauren — One of the reasons that this works so well is that the frozen berries almost make an instant ice cream. If you thaw the berries, the resulting mixture will freeze with an icier texture. You could certainly try it though, if the seeds bother you.