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Cookies and Cream Ice Cream

Cookies and cream ice cream made with a smooth, cooked vanilla custard and a no-churn-style churn step for thick, scoopable texture. Loaded with crushed chocolate sandwich cookies for dark chunks throughout a snow-white cream base.
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Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
chilling + freezing 4 minutes
Total Time 3 hours 49 minutes
Servings: 8 servings
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Calories: 420
Ingredients Equipment Method Notes

Ingredients
  

Ice cream base
  • 2 cup heavy cream
  • 1 cup whole milk
  • 0.75 cup granulated sugar
  • 4 egg yolks
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 0.25 tsp salt
Cookies
  • 20 chocolate sandwich cookies roughly crushed (about 2 cups)

Equipment

  • 1 Dutch oven
  • 1 fine mesh sieve
  • 1 ice cream maker

Method
 

Make the custard
  1. Heat the heavy cream and whole milk in a saucepan over medium heat until steaming, not boiling, then reduce to a gentle heat.
  2. Whisk the steaming cream mixture slowly into the egg yolks and granulated sugar, keeping the stream steady so the yolks don’t scramble.
  3. Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until the custard reaches 175F.
Chill the base
  1. Strain the custard through a fine mesh sieve into a clean bowl, then stir in the vanilla extract and salt.
  2. Cool the custard completely to room temperature, then refrigerate at least 4 hours until very cold.
Churn and freeze
  1. Churn the chilled custard in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
  2. In the last 2 minutes of churning, add the roughly crushed chocolate sandwich cookies, letting some chunks stay intact and some dissolve for a cookies-and-cream swirl effect.
  3. Transfer the churned ice cream to a container and freeze until firm.

Notes

For the smoothest custard, cook only until it hits 175F—once it coats the back of a spoon, pull it from the heat and strain right away. Refrigerate leftovers up to 5 days; for best scoopable texture, freeze well in a sealed container up to 2 months. For a lighter option, use reduced-fat milk and keep heavy cream at 1 cup, though the texture will be slightly less rich.