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No-churn ice cream is simple, however provided that you employ the precise substances—specifically, sweetened condensed milk. On this information, I break down the science of ice crystal formation, clarify how churned and no-churn strategies work, and present you precisely how you can make easy, scoopable ice cream with out an ice cream maker and with minimal substances.
Selfmade ice cream sounds dreamy, till your first spoonful seems grainy, icy, and nothing just like the pint you simply completed bingeing from the shop.
The offender? Ice crystals. After they’re small, they soften in your tongue, creating that creamy, custard-like scoop you crave. However after they develop too giant, you find yourself with icicles in a bowl. Thankfully, there is a option to outsmart them—and you do not want an ice cream maker to do it.
On this information, I will break down the science of ice crystal management, clarify how conventional churned ice cream avoids iciness, and present you how you can make a wealthy, velvety, no-churn model at house utilizing simply two substances. (Spoiler: One among them is sweetened condensed milk, and it is doing much more than including sweetness.)
Severe Eats / Qi Ai
Why Ice Crystals Matter
Ice cream, true to its identify, wants ice crystals to present it construction. Nonetheless, here is the catch: These crystals should be extraordinarily small. In the event that they’re too giant, the feel goes from silky to gritty in seconds.
Industrial ice lotions usually keep common crystal sizes between 26.3–67.1 μm (micrometers). Research present people begin detecting grittiness round 50 μm, and as soon as crystals strategy 100 μm, complaints go means up. So how can we keep under that threshold in a house kitchen?
How To Maintain Ice Crystals Small
There are two main methods to stop the formation of huge ice crystals.
Add A Solute (Like Sugar)
Dissolved substances, equivalent to sugar or salt, like to bind to water. This bond interferes with the structured bonding of water molecules themselves as they freeze into ice crystals, retaining the ensuing crystals smaller and extra dispersed. Salt is simply too savory for the duty right here, however sugar? Sugar works superbly. To see why, let’s take a look at how totally different milk merchandise behave within the freezer:
- Milk (87% water) and evaporated milk (about 60% water): When frozen, they type strong blocks.
- Sweetened condensed milk(roughly 25–27% water): Even after freezing it stays gooey.
Severe Eats / Swetha Sivakumar
The rationale for this comes all the way down to sweetened condensed milk’s larger focus of sugar. Condensed milk is made by simmering milk beneath diminished strain (between 43–60°C) till about 60% of the water is eliminated, then including a considerable amount of sugar—about 45% sugar by weight. That a lot dissolved sugar depresses the freezing level of the milk and retains the combination semi-liquid within the freezer, making a smoother texture. In addition to the added sucrose, condensed milk usually comprises:
- 8–9% fats
- 20–22% nonfat milk solids
- 10–11% lactose (pure milk sugars)
- 25–27% moisture
The excessive ranges of sugar include a possible draw back: Sugar, particularly the pure lactose within the milk, has its personal tendency to crystallize, which might result in a wholly totally different gritty texture brought on by crystallized sugar as a substitute of ice. Nonetheless, throughout condensed milk manufacturing, producers seed the combo with very advantageous lactose crystals which might be too small to detect on the tongue, serving to to stop undesirable crystallization and guaranteeing a silky, easy texture.
So sugar is not only for sweetness, it is a structural aspect that may preserve your ice cream easy (if the sugar itself is stored easy).
Suppress Ostwald Ripening
Once I was a child, we did not have an ice cream maker. My mother would make a custard base, freeze it in ice dice trays, then mix the cubes and freeze the combo once more. It was tedious, however it ensured a easy ice cream texture with out disagreeable ice crystals. This hands-on technique works as a result of it manually disrupts a phenomenon often known as Ostwald ripening.
This scientific-sounding time period describes how smaller ice crystals are inclined to shrink as bigger ones develop which means small ice crystals “feed” bigger ones. This occurs as a result of water tends emigrate from tiny crystals which might be much less secure to larger ones which might be extra secure. The consequence of all that is ice cream with fewer, bigger crystals and an disagreeable, gritty texture when eaten.
Ostwald ripening might be diminished each mechanically and chemically. My mother did it with a blender, and ice cream makers do it too: They continuously agitate the bottom, breaking apart bigger ice crystals as they type. One other option to restrict Ostwald ripening is by offering quite a few small nucleation websites—locations the place crystals can start to develop. Since crystals desire to develop on current ones fairly than begin from scratch, seeding the combination with numerous tiny crystals helps preserve their dimension in examine. That is why superfine lactose is added to condensed milk: it floods the combination with micro-sized nucleation websites, lowering the chance of bigger, gritty crystals forming over time.
In case you do not cease these processes, you get icy textures.
How Ice Cream Makers Work
Fashionable ice cream makers use a two-phase freezing system to outsmart Ostwald ripening.
Dynamic Freezing Part
The combination is chilled whereas being churned. Ice begins to type on the partitions of the bowl, and the rotating dasher scrapes off these tiny crystals, distributing them evenly by means of the combination. This creates a seeded matrix of uniform, micro-sized crystals, which helps forestall giant crystals from forming later. The smaller the crystals are in the beginning, the higher we will forestall giant crystals from forming later.
Static Freezing Part
As soon as the combo reaches -5°C to -6°C (23–21.2°F), it is transferred to a daily freezer to harden to a scoopable -18°C (-0.4°F). As a result of the crystal dimension was fastidiously managed throughout dynamic freezing, the ultimate texture stays easy. With out the churning and preliminary seeding, you are more likely to find yourself with a chunky, crunchy mess.
The Secret to Creamy Ice Cream With out an Ice Cream Maker
An ice cream maker is nice, however it’s an funding in cash, area, and time. Plus, not everybody needs or remembers to pre-freeze a bowl for twenty-four hours, a standard requirement for a lot of house churns. Fortunately, there is a a lot less complicated option to make wealthy, creamy ice cream at house: no-churn ice cream.
As a substitute of counting on mechanical strategies, this system makes use of substances that naturally inhibit crystal development. The important thing substances in well-made no-churn ice cream must have little or no “free water,” so there’s much less likelihood for large crystals to type. On the heart of this magic trick is the hero we have already mentioned: sweetened condensed milk.
Sweetened condensed milk is like an anti-freeze agent that is tailored for ice cream. As talked about above, as a result of it comprises each a excessive focus of sugar (~45%) and diminished water content material, it has a naturally low freezing level and a syrupy consistency that resists solidifying into an ice brick.
Severe Eats / Qi Ai
Not like common milk or cream, which can freeze into rock-hard slabs with out churning, condensed milk stays semi-fluid within the freezer. This prevents giant ice crystals from forming and maintains a mushy, scoopable texture even after hours (or days) of storage.
On high of that, the sugar in condensed milk is not nearly sweetness; it is a structural software. Dissolved sugar interferes with ice formation, whereas the small quantity of remaining water is sure with milk proteins and lactose. The result’s minimal free water, which suggests minimal crystal development.
The second important part in no-churn ice cream is heavy whipping cream. When whipped to mushy peaks, cream traps air, creating a light-weight, ethereal construction. This foam-like matrix is what provides no-churn ice cream its signature lightness and quantity—one thing a churn introduces mechanically throughout mixing, however condensed milk alone cannot do.
Extra importantly, the fats and air from whipped cream additionally interrupt ice crystal formation, creating bodily obstacles that cease water molecules from organizing into giant crystals. The excessive fats content material additionally contributes to mouthfeel, making the ultimate product wealthy and creamy as a substitute of brittle or icy.
Severe Eats / Swetha Sivakumar
Whereas unsweetened frozen cream will not be as tasty as a consequence of its lack of sweetness, it resists forming noticeable ice crystals as a result of fats and air bodily interrupt crystal development. The fats and air disrupt crystal formation, and since there’s so little free water, there’s much less to freeze within the first place.
Simply watch out to not over-whip the cream: An excessive amount of air results in crumbly, aerated textures as a substitute of easy and creamy ones.
A Basic Step-by-Step Information to Making No-Churn Ice Cream
OK, I’ve talked by means of the important thing gamers in no-churn ice cream, here is a normal breakdown of how you can do it:
1. Whip the Cream. Whip two cups of chilly heavy cream to mushy peaks in a blender or meals processor. You need it thick sufficient to carry form however nonetheless easy and pliable—do not over-whip, or it will flip grainy or begin separating.
2. Add Sweetened Condensed Milk. Gently fold in a single 14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk till the combination is totally mixed and uniform. Work slowly and punctiliously to protect the air you have whipped into the cream.
3. Taste (Optionally available). Add any mix-ins, flavorings, or fruit purees at this stage—see the information under to keep away from introducing an excessive amount of moisture, which may end up in icy textures.
4. Freeze. Pour the combination right into a loaf pan or freezer-safe container. Clean the highest, cowl tightly with plastic wrap or a lid, and freeze till agency (no less than six hours).
That is it. With only a bowl, a mixer, and a little bit of chill time, you are in your option to a selfmade ice cream that rivals one of the best store-bought pints—no machine essential.
Severe Eats / Swetha Sivakumar
Including Taste With out the Icy Fallout
Now that you realize the science behind making a creamy, easy no-churn ice cream base, you will in all probability need to incorporate taste. The most important mistake you can also make at this stage is including substances with excessive water content material, equivalent to recent fruit, which introduces free water and thus iciness. As a substitute, listed below are some taste solutions that will not danger introducing icy chunks again into your ice cream:
- Jams or cooked fruit purees, the place the sugar already binds to water
- Nut butters, chocolate, or alcohols, which convey daring taste with out water
- Acidic fruits, like mango, however solely when cooked down with sugar
For instance, in my no-churn mango ice cream recipe, I boil mango puree with sugar earlier than folding it into the ice cream base. It freezes right into a sorbet-like consistency, and its sharp fruity taste pairs superbly with the condensed milk base. The result’s creamy, tangy, and completely easy.
Severe Eats / Swetha Sivakumar
The Closing Scoop
Ice cream is greater than only a frozen dessert; it is a surprisingly elegant colloid, aka a multi-phase meals system that blends strong, liquid, and gasoline:
- Stable: ice crystals and fats globules
- Liquid: A sugar-dense syrup (from the condensed milk)
- Fuel: Air pockets launched by whipping cream
This microstructure is what makes ice cream ice cream. And with just some fundamental pantry-friendly substances, together with sweetened condensed milk and heavy whipping cream, you possibly can recreate that complexity with none particular instruments. All you want is a blender, hand mixer, or perhaps a meals processor to whip the cream and fold within the condensed milk.
You get a dessert that is mushy, creamy, scoopable, and prepared for all of the flavors and add-ins your coronary heart needs. With slightly kitchen chemistry and time, you will have ice cream that is each bit nearly as good as what you’d purchase in a pint.