Fall

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream

October  7, 2014
5
3 Ratings
  • Makes a little over a pint
Author Notes

I have found that it's nice to have a neutral base for this ice cream. The flavor of vanilla bean ice cream gets lost. Chocolate is too dominant. My favorite is a brown sugar custard because it pairs nicely with the ingredients in the cookie dough. Feel free to use any chocolate chip cookie dough that's in the Toll House family for this recipe. Here's my favorite: https://food52.com/recipes.... (Or go wild and use ginger snap, chocolatine, or snicker doodle dough. And please report back. I would love some inspiration.) —Phyllis Grant

What You'll Need
Ingredients
  • 1 1/2 cups half and half
  • 1/3 cup light or dark brown sugar
  • 6 egg yolks
  • 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
  • 1/3 cup white sugar
  • 2 1/2 cups (12 ounces) of your favorite chocolate chip cookie dough, chopped into dime-sized chunks, frozen
Directions
  1. This recipe requires an ice cream machine. So make sure it's in working order. And if an insert is required, freeze it for 24 hours.
  2. Prep the water bath so that all is in place when the ice cream custard is done: Place a fine strainer over a medium bowl. Rest bottom of the medium bowl in a large bowl. Add about an ice tray's worth of ice cubes to the large bowl. Set aside.
  3. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together half and half, brown sugar, yolks, and salt. Set aside. In a medium-sized pot, over high heat, whisk together heavy cream and white sugar. Turn off the heat just as the cream starts to come to the boil.
  4. SLOWLY pour the hot cream into the half and half/egg mixture, whisking constantly. This tempers the eggs, allowing them to adjust to the change in temperature without curdling. Pour the mixture back into the original cream pot. Set aside your whisk and bring out a wooden spoon. Place back on medium heat. And start stirring. Don't walk away or you will have scrambled eggs. Watch and feel for the shift in viscosity. As you stir, the thin custard will slap against the sides of the pot like waves against the side of a boat. As it thickens, the gliding spoon will cause the custard to rise up and settle back down without much of a splash. This takes anywhere from 3 to 5 minutes. But don't time it. Just watch. To confirm that it's done, do the drag-your-finger-across-the-back-of-the-wooden-spoon test. It's ready when your finger leaves a lovely lingering trail. Pour mixture through the fine strainer into the medium bowl that's resting in the large bowl. Pour just enough water in with the ice cubes so that the ice water is at least half way up the side of the bowl filled with the ice cream custard. Leave bowl over the ice bath until it's cool. Stir every 10 minutes or so. Refrigerate custard for a few hours or overnight.
  5. I find it's easier to stir in the cookie dough if you use a baking dish with a wide surface area. Chill selected dish in the freezer.
  6. Churn in ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions. Removed chilled dish and cookie dough from the freezer. Move quickly. Evenly spread half the ice cream into the bottom of the dish. Use your fingers to distribute half of the cookie dough all over the top of the ice cream. With a spoon, try to position the chunks so that each big bite include dough. Top with remaining ice cream. Mix in remaining cookie dough using the same technique as the first half. Freeze for a few hours before serving.

See what other Food52ers are saying.

  • Emily McKnight Wheeler
    Emily McKnight Wheeler
  • Phyllis Grant
    Phyllis Grant
  • Jay
    Jay
  • shellie
    shellie
Phyllis Grant is an IACP finalist for Personal Essays/Memoir Writing and a three-time Saveur Food Blog Awards finalist for her blog, Dash and Bella. Her essays and recipes have been published in a dozen anthologies and cookbooks including Best Food Writing 2015 and 2016. Her work has been featured both in print and online for various outlets, including Oprah, The New York Times, Food52, Saveur, The Huffington Post, Time Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, Tasting Table and Salon. Her memoir with recipes, Everything Is Out of Control, is coming out April 2020 from Farrar Straus & Giroux. She lives in Berkeley, California with her husband and two children.

7 Reviews

Emily M. May 4, 2024
I had exactly 6 egg yolks after making a pavlova for a party and decided to make this so they didn't go to waste. I prefer to go by temperature rather than feel when I make a custard, but I just googled it (~95C for the cream and sugar, and 170F for the final custard, sorry for the mixed temperature scales) and it worked great! I added vanilla paste after straining and cooling and added crushed double stuffed oreos when churning. Delicious!
 
Jay July 24, 2016
By the time you go and purchase all the ingredients- you can buy twice the volume a premium frozen cookie dough ice cream for half (1/2) the price.
 
shellie January 4, 2015
We're paranoid about raw eggs around here. If we made the cookie dough recipe without eggs, do you think it would make a difference once frozen into the ice cream?
 
Sam T. October 14, 2014
Hi,

I love your food it always looks amazing and I am definitely going to give these a go! I recently found this food delivery service called Gousto who make really nice healthy food and the deliver it to you for free! Check out there awesome blog here: https://www.gousto.co.uk/blog

Sam
 
nick October 8, 2014
Do you think this base would also work with chocolate chucks as add ins?
 
Phyllis G. October 8, 2014
nick. yes. that would work. but it might be a bit bland. the thing about this base is it's quite neutral. i would recommend adding some kind of cookie dough. alternatively, infuse the base with vanilla bean.
 
nick October 9, 2014
Thanks so much for responding!