Pumpkin Ice Cream Recipe
This pumpkin ice cream recipe is absolutely perfect for early fall when your heart says, "Ooooh, fall!" but the weather forecast screams that it's still summer. With just a few ingredients and ten minutes, you can have your pumpkin spice fix without sweating through your skivvies.
🔍 Recipe At-A-Glance: Pumpkin Ice Cream Recipe
- ⏰ Prep Time: 10 minutes
- 🕰️ Chill Time: 4-6 hours
- 🎃 Flavor Profile: Like a homemade pumpkin pie recipe with whipped cream (without the work of an all butter pie crust), but in ice cream form!
- 🫙 Texture: Dreamy creamy and perfectly scoopable.
- 🍁 Good For: Transitioning into fall weather and pumpkin spice season.
- 🧡 Difficulty: Dangerously easy.
"This is perfect for those of us who don't have ice cream makers...Definitely give this a go!"
- Tammy -
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🧡 Why You'll Love This Recipe
This is a pretty bold statement for a self-proclaimed lover of homemade ice cream, but here goes-I'm gonna throw away my ice cream maker. There is no need for it anymore, because I have jumped onto the no-churn ice cream bandwagon with both feet, and I'm never getting off. Life. Changed.
Here's why you'll love this recipe:
- No Special Equipment: I've been having a long-term love affair with my ice cream maker for years, so you know that if this method is enough to make me break up with her, it must be something special.
- Like Magic: Six ingredients, ten minutes of prep, and you get perfect pumpkin ice cream? Pure flipping wizardy. End of story.
- Stays Soft and Scoopable: I think my favorite part of no-churn ice cream (other than the whole "no churn" part) is that it keeps its texture no matter how long it is frozen for. Traditional homemade ice cream goes hard and icy after a few days, but this is not the case for the no-churn stuff! It's perfectly scoopable six hours later and six days later (if you can hold off eating it that long).
🍨 The Ingredients You Need
- Pumpkin Puree: Use homemade pumpkin puree or a can of the store-bought stuff. Whichever route you choose, go with unsweetened pumpkin puree-the sweetened condensed milk will provide plenty of sweetness!
- Heavy Cream and Sweetened Condensed Milk: These two ingredients are the secret to no-churn ice cream (I like this sweetened condensed milk). You could make ice cream with just these two ingredients, and it would still be the best homemade ice cream you'd ever had-we're just jazzing it up with some additional flavor here!
Make sure to check the recipe card below for the full ingredients list, along with quantities and my expert tips and tricks.
🔁 Variations & Substitutions
- Individual Servings: Portion the ice cream out into freezer-safe jars to make individual ice cream cups like this mason jar ice cream.
- Go Vegan: Use our vegan ice cream recipe, adding pumpkin puree and spices, to make a no-churn vegan pumpkin ice cream.
- Pumpkin Gingersnap Ice Cream: Add some ground ginger to the ice cream and serve with crumbled gingersnaps.
- Pumpkin Pie Sundae: Replace the cinnamon and nutmeg with pumpkin pie spice. Serve this ice cream with crumbled graham crackers, whipped cream, and homemade pumpkin spice syrup to give it even more of a pumpkin pie vibe.
🥣 How to Make This Pumpkin Ice Cream Recipe
Step 1: Clear a flat space in your freezer (unless you're far more organized than me and already have one!) and line a loaf pan with wax paper. Then it is ice cream time! Start by whisking together sweetened condensed milk, pumpkin, vanilla, and spices.
Step 2: In a separate bowl, beat the heavy cream until stiff peaks form. You'll know you're there if you lift the beater out of the cream and turn it upside down, the peak of cream at the end of the whisk stands straight up. Be careful not to overdo it, or the whipped cream will get grainy.
Step 3: Spoon a bit of the whipped cream into the pumpkin mixture and stir gently. Fold the rest of the whipped cream in until the whole mixture is smooth. (David/Moira Rose, this just means that you are gently scooping with your spatula from the bottom and lifting the pumpkin up and over the whipped cream. Think gentle vertical mixing, not vigorous stirring in a circle.)
Step 4: Pour your ice cream mixture into the lined loaf pan, and press another layer of wax paper on top (to keep out ice crystals). Freeze until solid and scoopable, about 4-6 hours.
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🙋🏻♀️ Pumpkin Ice Cream Recipe FAQs
The keys to the creamiest ice cream texture are 1) not overwhipping the heavy cream and 2) folding the whipped cream into the pumpkin mixutre, not vigorously mixing it in.
For no-churn ice cream, the trick is sweetened condensed milk and heavy whipping cream! Those two come together to make ice cream magic.
👩🏻🍳 My Expert Tips & Tricks
- Don't overwhip: Overwhipped heavy cream will look lumpy and start to separate. It will also make your ice cream grainy. Make sure you whip only until stiff peaks form, and then stop!
- Wax paper on top: Press a piece of wax paper on top of the ice cream before freezing. If the freezer air hits the surface of the ice cream, ice crystals will form. The wax paper protects the ice cream from air exposure = smoother ice cream.
🎃 More Sweet Pumpkin Recipes
If you tried this pumpkin ice cream recipe or any other recipe on my blog, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the comments!
📖 Recipe
No-Churn Pumpkin Ice Cream Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 14- ounce can of sweetened condensed milk
- ½ cup unsweetened pumpkin puree
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 2 cups heavy whipping cream
Instructions
- Line a loaf pan with waxed paper, set aside. And if your freezer is anything like mine, go ahead and take a second to clear a flat surface.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the sweetened condensed milk, pumpkin, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg until smooth. Set aside.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the whipping cream on high until stiff peaks form, about five minutes.
- Spoon about ½ cup of the whipped cream into the pumpkin mixture. Stir gently until mostly mixed (you're just looking to lighten up the mixture so the rest of the whipped cream can go in easily).
- Add the remaining whipped cream, and fold in gently. At first, the mixture will appear lumpy, but the more you fold, the smoother it will get. Don't be aggressive with your folding, just keep at it gently until it's smooth.
- Pour the mixture into the prepared loaf pan. Press an additional piece of waxed paper into the top of the mixture to prevent ice crystals from forming.
- Freeze for 4-6 hours, or until solid and scoopable.
Notes
- You'll want to whip the cream until stiff peaks form-that means the whipped cream holds its shape without collapsing. Anything less and your ice cream will be too soft. Anything more and your ice cream will come out grainy.
- Either put the wax paper back on top of the ice cream after serving, pressing it gently into the surface, or transfer the ice cream to an airtight freezer container. This will keep ice crystals from forming in your ice cream over time.
I made this ice cream yesterday, and it is great. Not surprisingly, it tasted like pumpkin pie with whipped cream. This recipe is a keeper!
I cannot WAIT to try this!!
This is perfect for those of us who don't have ice cream makers...not that, that ever stopped me before ;D
Definitely give this a go!
Toodles,
Tammy<3
I tried this last night - delicious flavor! However, my ice cream had a weird texture - it almost left a film on the roof of my mouth and tongue. I've never made any no-churn ice cream before, so I wasn't sure if this was normal or not. Any thoughts? I think I may have over whipped my heavy cream and veered too close to butter territory.
Yup! That's exactly what happened. When the whipped cream starts to separate even the tiniest bit in butter, you'll get that mouth coat-y thing going on once it's frozen. Still tasty, but a bit weird. Try erring on the side of underwhipping next time, and you should be good!
Actually, from my experience of making (many) no-churn ice cream, any version that uses sweetened condensed milk will leave a greasy thin film on the roof of your mouth and tongue.
Maybe you can try custard like no-churn ice cream that uses egg yolks instead of condensed milk as an ingredient. I've made custard like ice cream before and they were heavenly and did not leave any weird film in my mouth.
Oh my goodness this ice cream looks divine! I seriously can't wait to make this.
I've been debating on buying an ice cream maker and this recipe may have changed my mind! This looks so yummy and easy!
And just when I was about to pull the trigger and buy an ice cream maker. 😉 This looks fabulous.
Oh, this new no-churn ice cream knowledge could be dangerous, indeed. 🙂