White Chocolate Blackberry Ice Cream

Homemade ice cream is a summertime essential, and this blackberry white chocolate version is one of our favorite warm-weather desserts! It's made from scratch with a traditional egg yolk custard base, then churned in an electric ice cream maker. Fresh blackberry syrup and white chocolate give this ice cream a rich, complex flavor with a soft pink color.

With so few ingredients, great ice cream is all about technique. It's important to give some time and attention to each step of the process! If it's your first time making ice cream from scratch, don't worry: We'll walk you through it step by step. (Our homemade chocolate ice cream is also a great beginner-friendly recipe!)

This custard needs to chill in the refrigerator overnight before you churn it into ice cream, so plan to start this recipe the day before you want to eat it.

Like all good things, homemade ice cream takes practice. For best results, read this post completely before you start. If you run into questions, just leave us a comment below: our team is here to help!

Equipment You'll Need

• An ice cream machine! We like the ease of small electric countertop ice cream machines, but any ice cream maker with at least a 1.5 quart capacity will work here. We tested this recipe with the Cuisinart 1.5 quart ICE-20 and the 1.5 quart ICE 21-P1.
• Electric hand mixer. To make the custard, you'll first need to whip some egg yolks with sugar. While you can do this with a whisk and some elbow grease, an electric hand beater makes the process much easier and faster.
• A kitchen thermometer is nice to have, especially if you haven't made ice cream before. If you don't have a thermometer handy, don't worry: We'll give you plenty of visual cues to help you along!

Past that, you don't need much specialty equipment (although this recipe will leave you with a few dishes). A medium saucepan, a sturdy spoon or spatula, a ladle, a fine mesh strainer, and a few mixing bowls will cover you.

Check the instructions on your ice cream maker before you start! We used a Cuisinart 1.5 quart ICE-21 ice cream maker in these photos, which requires you to chill the bowl in the freezer for at least 24 hours before churning.

For a full ingredients list and exact quantities, scroll to the recipe card below.

• Blackberries are the star of the show! We prefer fresh berries here, but frozen berries will also work.
• White chocolate adds depth to this ice cream. We recommend a white baking chocolate bar, which melts more smoothly than white chocolate chips.
• A pinch of kosher salt helps the flavors "pop."
• Egg yolks and half-and-half form the backbone of our custard: Together, they make the ice cream creamy. (Save extra egg whites for small batch chocolate chip cookies or toss them into a frittata recipe!)

Mix blackberries and sugar together in a small saucepan (Images 1-2, above). Cook over low heat until the berries are soft and you have a thick, bright syrup (3). Set a fine mesh strainer over a medium bowl, and strain the syrup through to remove any seeds and large berry pieces (4).

Why make syrup? Blackberries contain a lot of seeds: Turning them into a thick syrup gives us that blackberry color and flavor without any grittiness. You can purée this syrup if you'd like to use the full berries and don't mind a bit of texture, but we prefer straining out the pieces and using the syrup on its own because it makes this ice cream feel silkier.

Start by using a hand mixer to whip your egg yolks (Image 7, above) until they are slightly frothy and lightened in color (8). The color difference is subtle, but you'll also notice the texture change: After a minute or two, the yolks will start to thicken and look a bit puffy!

No hand mixer? You can use a whisk, but it will take some time and elbow grease - we recommend using a hand mixer for best results.

Slowly add granulated sugar to egg yolks (Image 9, above), beating with the hand mixer between each addition (10). When all sugar has been incorporated, add vanilla extract (11). Continue mixing until you have a thick, fluffy mixture with a pale yellow color (12).

This mixture should feel kind of like airy cake batter - but not as stiff as whipped cream. Set this egg mixture aside while you heat the half-and-half in the next step.

Pro Tip: Take your time here! The goal is dissolve the sugar fully into the egg yolks (this helps make the ice cream creamy).

Add half-and-half to a small saucepan; place over medium heat, whisking frequently, until it reaches a low simmer (Image 13, above).

Use a small ladle to slowly add the hot half-and-half to the whipped egg mixture, one spoonful at a time. Whisk constantly, and fully incorporate each spoonful of liquid before adding more (14).

Pro Tip: The goal here is to slowly raise the temperature of the eggs - a technique called tempering - in order to prevent the eggs from cooking or curdling in response to the heat. Work slowly here, and be patient: This technique can take practice! If your eggs begin to curdle or scramble, check out some tips to recover in the FAQ section below.

Continue adding hot half-and-half to the egg mixture, one ladle-full at a time (15), until you've whisked in about ⅔ of the liquid.

At this point, the egg mixture should be a very similar color to the original half-and-half, and the texture should be almost identical (16). Once you reach this point, your eggs are "cooked" enough to move on to the next step!

What to Watch For: As you add hot half-and-half, the egg mixture will continue to thin out and lighten in color. The egg mixture will also slowly warm up - once you've whisked in about ⅔ of the liquid, the egg mixture bowl should feel warm to the touch.

Once the eggs are properly tempered, it's time for another round of slow whisking!

Slowly pour the tempered egg mixture back into the saucepan with the remaining half-and-half (Image 17, above). Once again, it's important to pour slowly and whisk constantly.

Next, whisk the blackberry syrup into the custard (18).

Return the saucepan to the stovetop over low heat. Cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture has thickened slightly and reached a temperature of at least 170° Fahrenheit. This custard won't thicken too dramatically, and it may have a thin layer of bubbles across the surface (19). That's okay!

How to tell when the custard is done: Stir the custard with a wooden spoon, then carefully run a finger across the widest part of the utensil. If the custard stays put and doesn't rush to fill in the line you created, it's ready! (Image 20, above.)

Slowly pour the hot custard through the sieve (23), letting it cover the chocolate pieces in the bowl below. Use a spoon to stir the custard to help coax it through the strainer. This can take a few minutes - take your time to make sure all of the custard gets pressed through the colander.

The strainer will catch any curdled egg pieces or large chunks of blackberry (24), leaving you with a smooth ice cream base.

Why strain the custard? Even experienced cooks can have trouble tempering eggs! To keep this recipe beginner-friendly, we included this straining step to remove any scrambled egg pieces and ensure a smooth ice cream.

Let the custard cool completely, then cover it with an airtight lid or plastic wrap (Images 27-28, above). Refrigerate overnight.

Equipment note: The lid in the photos above was recently discontinued; we also like these silicone bowl covers!

How to Cool Custard: Let the finished custard sit on the counter for about an hour, stirring frequently to release extra heat, until it's cooled to room temperature. To speed the cooling process, place the custard bowl into a larger bowl filled with ice (or an ice water bath) and stir until completely cooled. Learn more: How to use an ice water bath.

Pull your blackberry custard out of the fridge and remove the lid (Image 1, above). The custard will look about the same, but will have thickened a bit overnight. It should resemble a loose yogurt (2).

Pro Tip: This custard will thicken slightly in the fridge overnight, but it won't be as dramatic as other ice cream recipes (like our homemade chocolate ice cream, which has the consistency of a thick pudding when cold).

Prepare your ice cream mixer according to the appliance's directions (in our case, we place the frozen bowl on the base, attach a mixing arm and plastic cover, and turn the machine on before adding the custard).

Carefully pour the custard into the bowl of the ice cream machine and begin to churn. You'll likely need to use a spatula to help coax all of the custard out of the bowl.

As the ice cream churns, it will thicken significantly and lighten in color (Images 3-6, above).

Check the instructions on your ice cream machine! Every mixer is a little different. Be sure to consult your equipment's instructions to make sure you're assembling it correctly and adding the custard properly.

When it's ready, this ice cream will resemble soft serve (kind of like a Wendy's Frosty!) It will also start to pull away from the sides of the bowl where it meets the mixing arm (see image above). With our ice cream maker, the churning process takes about 20 minutes.

Don't worry if the surface of your ice cream isn't completely smooth. It will settle and smooth out quite a bit as you transfer it to the storage container!

Don't over-churn! Once the ice cream reaches a soft serve consistency, transfer it to a container and place it in the freezer (it will continue to harden as it chills). If you continue to churn ice cream after it's "done", it can develop ice crystals that create a gritty texture. This is one reason it's important to consult the instructions for your ice cream maker - one machine may need more or less time to churn than another!

Turn off your ice cream machine and remove the mixing arm (Image 7, above). Scrape the ice cream on the arm into a freezer-safe container (8).

Continue scooping ice cream from the mixer into the container (9) until it's full (10). Work quickly here to avoid melting! Place a lid on the container, then transfer it to the freezer for at least an hour before scooping.

Pro Tip: The ice cream may be stiffer along the sides, where it's in direct contact with the freezer bowl. Just scrape off as much as you can!

If we're eating it within a few days, we pack ice cream in freezer-safe 1-quart deli containers. Plastic containers can become brittle in the freezer over time, which makes them more prone to cracking under pressure (for example, if you squeeze the container too tightly while scooping hard chocolate ice cream). We find this problem is easily avoided by letting hard ice cream sit on the counter for five minutes before scooping.

Plastic deli containers are a bit quicker to form ice crystals along the surface of the ice cream than other containers we've tested. If you want to keep the ice cream in the freezer for several weeks, you may want to try a glass container with a freezer-safe lid. You can also find many specialty ice cream containers online!