Homemade Cookies and Cream Ice Cream Recipe

Cookies and cream ice cream (or cookies ‘n cream ice cream) is a frozen dessert featuring crushed chocolate sandwich cookies and a vanilla ice cream base. The flavor reportedly emerged in 1979. However, the inventor’s identity remains a point of contention, with a handful of individuals and ice cream companies claiming to have developed it sometime in the 1970s or 1980s.

While cookies and cream ice cream typically features a vanilla ice cream base, variations on the recipe may include strawberry, chocolate, mint chocolate, or peanut butter ice cream. Additionally, some recipes swap the chocolate sandwich cookies for peanut butter or fruit-flavored options.

You can achieve perfect, scoopable ice cream at home in many ways—some recipes use egg yolks, while others call for sweetened condensed milk. The simplest combination is full-fat milk and heavy whipping cream. Here are some tips to consider:

1. 1. Use your favorite cookie. While “cookies ‘n cream” is traditionally based on chocolate sandwich cookies, you can use any kind of sandwich cookie in your recipe. Try vanilla, peanut butter, or fruit flavors like strawberry and lemon. While lacking the usual icing center, amaretto cookies make for a crispy and aromatic profile that pairs well with a late-night espresso or digestif. You can also use the remains of a batch of homemade cookies—especially if they’re a bit stale—or thin, crunchy brownie bites.
2. 2. Switch up the ice cream base flavor. The “cream” in cookies and cream is typically vanilla ice cream, but you can easily make it with any of your favorite ice cream flavors, like coffee ice cream, strawberry ice cream, mint chocolate chip ice cream, or chocolate ice cream.
3. 3. Make the dessert using the no-churn method. To make no-churn homemade ice cream, pour the ice cream mixture into a chilled loaf pan and allow the ice cream to set for an hour. Whisk the ice cream vigorously, and then return it to the freezer. Repeat as needed, whisking and stirring at frequent intervals to incorporate air as it hardens. (Use a sheet of plastic wrap and press it onto the ice cream between stirs. This will make it so ice crystals don’t form.)
4. 4. Add mix-ins. Mix in a variety of ingredients for homemade ice cream, like cookie dough that’s labeled safe to consume raw. After churning, mix in anything from chocolate chips, marshmallows, fresh macerated fruit, brownie bites, or dulce de leche and transfer to the freezer to set.

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