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Coffee Ice Cream

Posted by Elise on Apr 5, 2007

Filed under Dessert

Coffee Ice Cream

I love coffee ice cream, but rarely get it because the caffeine does a number on me. If I have coffee or even mocha ice cream after dinner I'm jittery until 3 am. So, when I opened David Lebovitz's new book, The Perfect Scoop and found a recipe for coffee ice cream on page 34, the ice cream maker bowl immediately went into the freezer. If you make your own coffee ice cream, you can make it with decaffeinated beans! No late night jitters. Safe for kids. David has provided helpful advice for me on practically every ice cream recipe on this site, which have all turned out great, so it's no wonder that his new book's recipes are spot on. I think this is the best coffee ice cream I've ever had.

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Coffee Ice Cream Recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups whole milk
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups whole coffee beans (decaf unless you want the caffeine in your ice cream)
  • Pinch of salt
  • 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
  • 5 large egg yolks
  • 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/4 teaspoon finely ground coffee (press grinds through a fine mesh sieve)

Method

coffee-ice-cream-1.jpg
1 Heat the milk, sugar, whole coffee beans, salt, and 1/2 cup of the cream in a medium saucepan until it is quite warm and steamy, but not boiling. Once the mixture is warm, cover, remove from the heat, and let steep at room temperature for 1 hour.

coffee-ice-cream-6.jpg
2 Pour the remaining 1 cup of cream into a medium size metal bowl, set on ice over a larger bowl. Set a mesh strainer on top of the bowls. Set aside.

coffee-ice-cream-2.jpg
3 Reheat the milk and coffee mixture, on medium heat, until again hot and steamy (not boiling!). In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks together. Slowly pour the heated milk and coffee mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly so that the egg yolks are tempered by the warm milk, but not cooked by it. Scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

4 Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof, flat-bottomed spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula so that you can run your finger across the coating and have the coating not run. This can take about 10 minutes.

coffee-ice-cream-3.jpg coffee-ice-cream-4.jpg

5 Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream. Press on the coffee beans in the strainer to extract as much of the coffee flavor as possible. Then discard the beans. Mix in the vanilla and finely ground coffee, and stir until cool.

coffee-ice-cream-5.jpg

6 Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Makes one quart.

Indexed: Ice Cream

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47 Comments

Decaf ice cream -- what a great idea! I store the canister for my ice cream maker in the freezer, where I keep a can of decaf beans, too. Why haven't I ever thought to put those two things together?!

Posted by: lydia on April 5, 2007 2:55 AM

According to this recipe you stir in finely ground coffee and leave it in. Is that right? I've made decaf coffee ice cream before (for my mother in law who also loves coffee ice cream, but absolutely can't have caffeine), but I infused the custard with coffee and strained it out.

Posted by: Mary on April 5, 2007 5:18 AM

Hi Mary - the recipe calls for infusing 1 1/2 cups of coffee beans. You do add 1/4 teaspoon of finely ground coffee just for looks. You certainly don't need them if you don't want.

Posted by: Elise on April 5, 2007 7:20 AM

Elise, this is random, but I absolutely LOVE the print on your bowl! Do you know what the brand/print is called?

Thanks!

(and the ice cream looks oh so good, too. Someday I will buy an ice cream maker!)

Posted by: Dena on April 5, 2007 7:50 AM

Hi Dena - Hah! It's a local Raley's grocery store special. I needed a brown-themed bowl one day and picked it up.

Posted by: Elise on April 5, 2007 8:05 AM

Coffee is my favorite flavor... but it never occurred to me that it had caffeine in it! Thanks for the info.

Posted by: srah on April 5, 2007 8:30 AM

Infusing with whole beans versus using instant coffee? I gotta make me some of this.

I discovered David's web site through yours, Elise (belated thanks), and bookmarked a recipe of his for Honey Roquefort ice cream that I'm dying to try. With some roasted pears, perhaps?

Enjoy your holidays!

Posted by: jonathan on April 5, 2007 8:37 AM

What type of ice cream maker do you have? In his book - Does he go into the specifics of buying one and what to look for when making a purchase?

Posted by: hot tub johnny on April 5, 2007 9:58 AM

Hi hot tub johnny, I use the Cuisinart 1 1/2 quart ice cream maker. It's inexpensive and very easy to deal with. You just have to remember to put the freezing bowl in the freezer the day before you make the ice cream. In David's book he does go into detail about the various types of ice cream makers.

Posted by: Elise on April 5, 2007 11:02 AM

I'm with you, Elise, on loving the flavor of coffee, but also needing to sleep at some point. David is such a gem (and funny!), I can't wait to check out the book...my ice cream making this summer is sure to be inspired. Thanks.

Posted by: Tea on April 5, 2007 12:08 PM

Coffee is one of my favorite ice cream flavors, and I've been searching for a recipe which doesn't depend on using liquid coffee (potentially watery/icy), or dried coffee/espresso (potentially odd flavor). Thanks for posting this, Elise; steeping whole beans sounds innovative! One question, though: would 1/4 cup sugar be enough, that is, to balance the bitterness of the coffee?

Posted by: sairuh on April 5, 2007 2:39 PM

Hi Sairuh,
Yikes! You caught a typo. That's 3/4 cup of sugar, not 1/4 cup. Correction made. (Hitting head against wall...)

Posted by: Elise on April 5, 2007 4:20 PM

Elise, this looks so good. My copy is in the mail, so I haven't been able to peruse it thoroughly. But now I know which recipe I'm going to make first, thanks to you!

Posted by: shauna on April 5, 2007 5:47 PM

I love coffee ice cream! It is the base for one of my favorite quick company desserts - coffee ice cream sprinkled with crushed Heath bars and drizzled with Kahlua! Thanks for the tip- I need to check out this book (on second thought, maybe I need to wait until bathing suit weather is over!)

Posted by: Deborah Dowd on April 5, 2007 7:42 PM

I can already taste scoops of this ice cream pressed into a toasted graham cracker crust. Thank you Elise, this recipe looks marvelous!

Posted by: Lisa on April 5, 2007 9:17 PM

You're killin' me here with that picture...even the bowl makes it look more delicious! And I just finished breakfast!

Posted by: Kathy on April 6, 2007 5:41 AM

How long does homemade ice cream last? Can it stay in the freezer for a week? Does it start to deteriate like form ice crystals, lose flavor, etc...

Posted by: hot tub johnny on April 6, 2007 8:07 AM

Lovely! Coffee is not for me, but I'll love to have with decaf beans! Oh, I just can't thank you enough!!! =)

Posted by: sweetperceptions on April 7, 2007 12:44 AM

Dear Dena and Elise,

This design is an Indian motif inspired by Mango. It is traditionally called AMBI design which is the local name for mangoes. This motif / design is very common all over india subcontinent in embroidery, hand block printing, machine printing, on invitation cards and even on pottery as you see here. India is one of the coffee producing and exporting country too.

By the way, I love coffee ice cream and will try this. I appreciate the way this recipe thinks of preserving the flavour of coffee.

Thanks,
GSK

Posted by: G S Kripacharya on April 7, 2007 9:14 AM

Hi Elise,
I made some coffee ice cream the other day using instant espresso powder. I'll have to try this way next time, looks delish and it's great that you can use decaf beans. Is it possible to use ground beans and pass the steeped cream through a cheesecloth or would I have to use whole beans?

Posted by: Amy on April 11, 2007 5:07 PM

We recently picked up an ice cream maker and this was the first recipe we chose to make. Given that we were a bit impatient the first go around, the texture was more of a coffee milkshake than that of ice cream but the tast was simply divine. Having since gotten a few more sorbets and ice creams under my belt, I thought I would revisit this recipe as a sweet ending for a dinner in honor of my beautiful mother for mother's day.
Rich, creamy and infused with the Italian Roast coffee, this is probably the best ice cream I've ever had. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe. As an aside, I topped off the scoops with some crumbled Musso's almond cookies that I picked up a Corti-Bros in East Sac. It was a great accompaniment.
As always, thank you for the beautiful site and great recipes.

Posted by: Rosie on May 13, 2007 7:01 AM

This is THE BEST coffee ice cream I've ever tasted- and that includes all coffee ice cream- store bought, specialty ice cream store made, etc. I almost didn't use this recipe because it seemed a bit complicated- but I'm glad I did! It's not complicated, it just takes some time and dirtying of lots of dishes, but it's sooo worth it! I used the best coffee beans and when I was freezing the ice cream, I added some finely chopped Vahlrona bittersweet chocolate. That little bit of chocolate flavor made it spectacular! Thank you for this recipe- I'll definitely be back to your site when I'm in search of other recipes.

Posted by: Lisa on June 20, 2007 3:26 PM

We made this ice cream last night and the results were just as you described. We'll have to check out David's book. We used 1% milk instead of whole milk (since that's what we had) and the product was still very rich. We added pieces of a couple of small Skor bars at the end of the machine freezing cycle (alas, we couldn't find Heath Bars locally). The resulting ice cream had another layer of taste and texture. The next time we do this, we'd be tempted to cut back a bit on the sugar. Thanks for this recipe. What an outstanding site you have!

Posted by: Michael K. on August 4, 2007 6:26 AM

Elise,

We will be making this for guests tomorrow night.

We only have 4 egg yolks at home - would it completely throw off the ice cream if we were to use 4 instead of 5? We NEVER eat eggs at home, so I don't want to buy another 6 eggs just to get one yolk... but I will if you say that it needs the extra one!

Posted by: Dana on August 15, 2007 7:31 AM

I made the ice cream, and it is very, very good. But the recipe made far less than a quart. Any suggestions?

Posted by: Jeff on September 12, 2007 5:19 AM

Holey moley, this is a great ice cream recipe. I made a double batch using my local silverhook brand coffee (Kodiak roast) and g** d*** if this isn't the greatest coffee ice cream I've ever had. Thank you!! -Neil in Anchorage, AK

Posted by: Muskeg on December 23, 2007 5:35 PM

I have been making home made ice cream for about three years. Typically, I use light cream instead of the double cream and milk called for in this recipe and freeze it in a Lello 1 quart self-contained ice cream maker. I also used home roasted Columbian Popayan coffee beans.

( BTW...if you've never had home roasted coffee you are missing out on one of lifes' truly great pleasures. It's less expensive to buy and ship green beans and roast them at home).

The results were outstanding. I may even sell this...lol.

This is an excellent recipe. 5 stars.

Posted by: Gregg on February 11, 2008 5:48 AM

TOTALLY WORTH IT. That's the first advice I can give about this (seems to me) labor-intensive recipe. When I got my ice cream maker, I imagined I'd throw in milk and sugar and I'd get ice cream. Not so. But so worth it.

I also got WAY less than a quart. Pretty much right at a pint. I wonder if I used too much heavy whipping cream (had to make a substitution) and if that extra cream made it churn much faster than the powder mixes I'd used in ice cream before. This recipe finished churning after five minutes as opposed to the fifteen or twenty minutes I'd used for the powder mixes.

Despite the extra effort - I'm definitely going this route in the future. Thanks for sharing the recipe!

Posted by: Daisy on March 18, 2008 4:13 PM

I intend to make this using Starbucks dark chocloate covered Espresso beans in place of some of the finely ground coffee. Put them on a coarse grind and add them last. It will add a slightly crunchy texture and surprisingly little caffeine, I snack on them all the time! ;)

Posted by: TC R on April 16, 2008 7:24 PM

Is it ok if i forgot about it and it boiled for like 10 minutes. It was frothy...

I'm assuming that this is before the eggs went in? If so, it might be okay. What does it taste like? When you boil milk it can change the taste. If it tastes good, then I would go for it. ~Elise

Posted by: olivia on July 30, 2008 10:14 AM

You're awesome. Thanks a bunch for a brilliant and tasty jolt to my taste buds. We love you.

Posted by: kish on September 19, 2008 3:28 AM

I had a lot of trouble with this recipe, though I did make one mistake. I mixed all the milks together in the beginning, and then added the yolks and reheated as instructed. However, the mixure never got creamy as it looks in the pictures, little granules started to appear, the mixure became almost like porridge. The mixure did not strain through very well, so I must have done something completely wrong. Could adding all the milk together and not setting any aside really have done this? I figured I could add more chilled milk later if I thought it needed it.

This is one of those recipes in which you really do need to follow the exact instructions for it to work properly. It sounds like you did not temper the egg yolks with the hot milk/cream mixture, but just put the eggs in with the milk/cream? Sounds like your mixture curdled. If this happens again, you can save it by putting the curdled mixture into a blender and then blending the heck out of it. The chilled cream is to help stop the cooking and prevent the curdling, so you definitely do want to split the cream. ~Elise

Posted by: William on October 15, 2008 10:36 PM

Hey, I made this recipe for Rhanksgiving and it turned out wonderfully. I used caffeinated espresso beans from Intelligentsia.

Here's what it looked like.

Thanks for the great recipe!

Posted by: Michael Hoffman on December 12, 2008 10:36 AM

Hello,
Your coffee ice cream looks really yummy. I really like to try the recipe. May I know whether I can replace coffee bean to instant coffee powder?

Yes you can use instant coffee powder, but I don't know what to tell regarding how much. It would likely not be a 1:1 substitution. You might want to check around for other coffee recipes online to see if you can find one with an estimate of how much instant coffee to use. ~Elise

Posted by: Grace on December 16, 2008 9:32 PM

The Perfect Scoop is awesome, isn't it? I just made his pear-caramel ice cream. Awesome flavor.

Posted by: Michael Natkin on January 12, 2009 3:53 PM

Amazing amazing amazing. Made the perfect amount for a mud pie.

Posted by: Kim on March 5, 2009 1:48 PM

This recipe is excellent. I made three different ice creams for dessert after a dinner of homemade pizza with friends. This coffee ice cream was the hit (others were coconut and french vanilla).

I made a few minor changes to this recipe. I added a bit more cream to the cold milk. Instead of straining the warm coffee-infused cream into the cold milk, I strained first into an empty bowl over another bowl of ice. Then I poured the milk/cream over the beans to rinse them off a bit more. Then press it down to get as mich as possible. For the ground coffee, I just crushed two beans with the bottom of a shot glass.

Posted by: Tim on March 15, 2009 12:47 PM

I used cream/half and half instead of cream/whole milk and added chocolate chips at the end. Obviously not the healthiest change but it came out perfectly. I chose hazelnut coffee beans because I like the flavor. Thanks for the recipe.

Posted by: Brian on March 30, 2009 4:14 PM

How bizzare. I also made this along with homemade pizza and had 3 ice creams as well. My others were cardamom and chocolate chip cookie dough.
Anyway, this recipe was flawless. I used decaf organic dark roast coffee beans. Chilling the coffee custard down in the fridge and then sticking it in the freezer for about 20 minutes prior to adding it to the ice cream mixer allows one to make two batches without refreezing the bowl.

Posted by: matt on April 2, 2009 1:42 PM

Oh boy... I should have made more. And it's not even ice cream yet!
I just made the mixture and it's in the fridge to chill until tomorrow so I can make it tomorrow night for a party on Saturday (and hopefully that way it won't quite be rock hard by the time we want to eat it). I tried a bit of the mixture after I strained it (ok, I licked the spoon. But at least I didn't "try" more) to make sure that it'll be worth the effort and MAN! It was hard not to find an excuse to eat the lot in it's unfrozen state. I can't wait until Saturday! And to think I was feeling slightly blah about the eggs/custard procedure. Easy peasy, just takes a while and a few bowls. Next time I'm doubling the recipe.

Posted by: nicole on May 7, 2009 6:25 AM

Target has ice cream makers on sale this week. The 1 quart Rival model is 24.99 USD. Picking that one up this weekend.

Going to attempt your recipe and add 5 crushed Heath Bars to the mix before freezing. Girl friend's birthday party will be a hit if I pull this off. Wish me luck.

Good luck! And thanks for the tip on the deal at Target. ~Elise

Posted by: Davie on May 27, 2009 3:32 PM

I followed the recipe above and only added 2 crushed Heath Bars. WO.oho.O! It's rich! Very much a custard base and it's really good. And if you have a 4qt ice cream maker, double the recipe above you'll be glad you did.

I found the custard style to be a bit too much egg for me so I crossed the recipe and made another batch. I like it! I also doubled the recipe to make 2qts. Here are the quantities, same directions as above.

Davie's Coffee Toffee Ice Cream
2 cups whole milk
1-1/2 cups white sugar
3 cups whole coffee beans (Starbucks French Roast)
4 egg yolks
4 cups heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-1/2 teaspoons of finely ground coffee (Espresso ground fine) I didn't use the sieve, but then I really like chocolate covered coffee beans)
4 Frozen Heath Bars, crushed

Posted by: Davie on June 2, 2009 5:38 PM

Oh baby am I in heaven. I hate coffee but my mom loves it so I made it and I love it. I don't think my normal by the carton will ever be enough. Thanks
Brandie

Posted by: brandie on June 19, 2009 1:09 PM

Elise, I am so happy to have stumbled across your blog. I searched for a couple of ice cream recipes and found this one. I did not use decaf as I am a caffeine junkie-I used Pete's Major Dickison's beans and added a vanilla bean to the milk and beans as they steeped-can I just say OH MY WORD-The finished product is out of this world. I made a double batch for a family party this weekend...so glad I did as I keep going back to the freezer for 'just one more bite'. I also made your mint chocolate chip ice cream. It is unbelievable-my girlfriend was here a few minutes ago and tasted it-her remark was "It tastes so fresh and organic"-I have to agree-it is heaven. I can't wait to jump in to your website and see what other wonderful recipes you offer....and so happy to see you are a Sacramento neighbor. Thanks for sharing.
Mary in Sacramento

Posted by: Mary on July 2, 2009 6:48 PM

Hello! I made a double batch of this ice cream with the addition of 1 oz of bourbon to the custard. When it was almost fully churned, I drizzled in the caramel sauce (recipe from your site, cooled in the fridge) squeezed out of the corner of a baggie. It was so delicious! I used it to make ice cream sandwiches with these cookies. So good!

Posted by: Libby on July 4, 2009 9:48 AM

Oh my goodness. That was fabulous. I followed the recipe to the letter (a rarity for me) and it is absolutely perfect. Rich, intensely flavored and really creamy. I used regular Kona coffee beans and they were ideal. I just got an ice cream maker and was looking for a recipe that my fiance would really like. Your blog is always my go to place for great recipes and I was thrilled when I saw the coffee ice cream, he's a total coffee fiend. We both loved it. Thanks!

Posted by: Megan on July 24, 2009 6:43 PM

Great recipe!! Perfect coffee taste! I'll definitely have to try some of your other ice cream recipes!

Posted by: Katie on August 11, 2009 2:46 PM

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