No-Churn Lemon Ice Cream

People who like ice cream (hi!) will eat it no matter the weather. This is a relief, because as I write, the US is dealing with snow, flooding rains, and excessive heat. And many other issues, not to be discussed here.

This makes posting recipes a challenge. I mean, it makes lots of things challenging. But we aren’t going there. Today is all about lemon ice cream. No-churn. As in, no machinery necessary. You have bowls? Great. You can make no-churn lemon ice cream.

No-churn lemon ice cream has three sources. The first is Bee Wilson’s wonderful The Secret of Cooking, a memoir/cookbook filled with recipes, tips, and useful ideas. For example, gently whipping that last bit of heavy cream, stirring in any lingering bits of fruit, then freezing this ad-hoc mixture. Voila: ice cream.

The second source of no-churn lemon ice cream is Nigella, who gives no-churn ice cream recipes in at least two of her books. I confess I’ve made none of them, but the idea lodged in my skull. See Nigella Express and In My Kitchen for the recipes that inspired this one.

The third source comes from the late, beloved Barbara Tropp’s Mastering The Art of Chinese Cooking, which includes a recipe for Mandarin Orange Ice Cream. I have made this, and it’s delicious.

Incidentally, all of the above are well worth your cookbook dollar.

The fourth source–yeah, I know, I said three–is our wildly prolific backyard lemon tree. So bountiful is this tree that I’ve been reduced to freezing lemons. And yes, I know this is a first world problem.

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Into the kitchen.

The most arduous part of making no-churn lemon ice cream is juicing the lemons. Some of us have squeezing technology in the form of juicers. Some of us do not, and must manually squeeze our lemons, not to fall right out of bed, but to achieve lemon ice cream. The question then becomes, how many lemons?

My backyard lemons yield about 1/4 cup/60 ml juice each. Without getting overly technical, this means you’ll need 4-6 medium lemons. If the notion of juicing 4-6 lemons appals, you can always buy commercial lemon juice.

We all know there’s dairy, and then there is Dairy. As in, you can buy your supermarket brand milk, which is absolutely fine, or you can push the boat out, as our British friends say, and buy Straus. Or do as I did and go the middle way. In my case this means purchasing from Clover dairy, which is just north of us in Petaluma. The folks at Clover have no idea I’m writing about them, much less using their products.

Obviously, the richer the dairy, the richer the ice cream. I have mentioned my underweight husband and my ongoing attempts to remedy that state. Hence my use of half-and-half, a product made of half milk, half cream, and heavy cream. Use whatever combination of dairy you wish in your no-churn lemon ice cream–all heavy cream, a mixture of cream and milk, cream and half-and-half–bearing in mind that the low fat route will give a correspondingly lean result. Expect something more like a lemon granita than a creamy ice cream.

On that note, let us discuss sugar. Baker’s sugar, which is finely ground, is ideal in no-churn ice cream recipes, as it dissolves quickly. Lacking baker’s sugar, confectioner’s sugar makes an excellent substitute. Lacking either, you can grind regular sugar in a processor, making your own baker’s sugar, or you can say the hell with it and use regular white sugar. No-churn lemon ice cream is supposed to save effort, not create it.

Whatever route you take, please taste your ice cream mixture before freezing it. Cold dulls flavors. And my idea of sweet may radically differ from yours.

You want to freeze your no-churn lemon ice cream in small bowls. Why? Decanting the mixture into one larger bowl leads to an unpleasantly icy result. You could, of course, pour the mixture into a large bowl and stir it every 45 minutes for the next two hours. If you’re willing to do that, you’ll have a lovely ice cream. But we’re looking to save work, not create it.

Please note my motley collection of “ice cream” bowls. In May John and I will celebrate thirty years of marriage. Somehow, over three decades, I have failed to acquire ice cream dishes. I keep meaning to, but life is what happens when you’re making other plans. (It may be hard to tell from the photo, but none of these match. Trust me.)

No-churn lemon ice cream is lovely all by itself. Then again, it’s difficult to imagine a dessert that isn’t improved by a generous dollop of whipped cream.

If you are serving no-churn lemon ice cream to adults, you might consider putting a bottle of Limoncello on the table, along with shot glasses.  No-churn lemon ice cream is also nice accompanied by sugar cookies, tuiles, or shortbread cookies. (Not that I had either of these, alas.)

Wherever you are, may you eat no-churn lemon ice cream in comfort–safe from floods, ice storms, excessive heat, freezing cold, and the various terrors that continue to hound us. May you have, if only for a moment, peace.