Top 10 List: Favorite Ice Cream Recipes
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Ahh, ice cream. One of my very favorite comfort foods. In the summer, nothing beats a trip to the local ice cream stand for my standard order – a chocolate and vanilla twist with chocolate sprinkles. And ever since I got the ice cream attachment for my KitchenAid mixer, there is usually a constant supply of homemade ice cream in my freezer. Since I started making it a couple of years ago I have tried tons of recipes and have pretty much enjoyed them all, but like anything, I definitely have favorites! Since summer is knocking on the door for many of us, I thought that ice cream would be a great pick for another Top 10 List installment. Enjoy!
(If you don’t have an ice cream maker or attachment, you can still enjoy homemade ice cream! Check out my tutorial: How to Make Homemade Ice Cream Without an Ice Cream Maker)
1. Butter Pecan Ice Cream – This recipe mimics the classic butter pecan that I grew up eating. The ice cream is smooth and buttery, and there are tons of pecans throughout.
2. Chocolate Ice Cream – This is, hands down, the best chocolate ice cream I have ever eaten. Ever. Anywhere. It will change your life.
3. Cinnamon Ice Cream – I love how clean and fresh this cinnamon ice cream tastes. It’s not overpowering, just very simply infused with cinnamon. It’s perfect with your favorite fall pies – apple, peach, pear, pumpkin, etc.
4. Classic Vanilla Bean Ice Cream – It’s as classic as they come and I typically always have a batch of this in my freezer. You can’t go wrong with fabulous vanilla ice cream. I love a big scoop on top of my favorite chocolate chip cookies as an easy dessert 
5. Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream – This screams summer for all of the obvious reasons. Once strawberries are in season where you live, you’ll want to make this again and again. A big cone of this on a summer evening is sublime.
6. Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream – Easily one of my favorites and another classic. This recipe uses a plain mint extract for the mint flavor and lots of chocolate chip. It’s another one of my summer favorites.
7. Pistachio Nut Ice Cream – It took me a couple of tries to get this one right, but it was worth every ounce of effort. Not only are there tons of pistachio nuts throughout the ice cream, but the cream mixture itself is infused with crushed pistachios for maximum flavor. This is one of my Chief Culinary Consultant’s favorites.
8. Salted Caramel Ice Cream – This ice cream definitely holds the record for how fast it disappeared from the freezer. Out of all the ice creams I have made, this one got gobbled up the fastest, no contest. Although when you have an ice cream blended with salted caramel and tons of little praline bits mixed in, it’s not hard to see why.
9. Tin Roof Ice Cream – Easily in my top 3, this is basic vanilla bean ice cream with a fudge ripple and tons of… wait for it… chocolate-covered peanuts. It’s basically my heaven. When I make it, I cannot stop eating it. Heading to the freezer with a spoon in your hand is a good sign that you made some killer ice cream 
10. Toasted Almond and Candied Cherry Ice Cream – I made this one specifically for my grandma, but I ended up loving it just as much as she did. Loads of cherries and almonds, which makes for such a decadent flavor combination. Another perfect one for summer!
What’s your favorite ice cream flavor?
I will take a scoop of each please!! I gotta get me an ice cream maker! ASAP!!
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This is terrific! My husband and I were just discussing this weekend that it was time to resume ice cream production now that summer is approaching.
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I was just thinking this morning that I am so glad that ice cream season is approaching!
Thanks so much for all of these fantastic ideas – I especially love the cherry and pistachio ones.
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Oooh – you are killing me – which to try first?
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Wow these all look amazing. I’m with your granma, the cherry and almond one sounds divine. The best ice cream I’ve ever tasted was a roasted hazelnut ice cream while in Italy. AMAZING!
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I got an ice cream attachment for Mother’s Day..we have already tried vanilla, mint chip (twice) and choc. peanut butter…oh my!!! LOVE MY GIFT!!!!!!!! Thanks for more yummy recipes!!!!
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Ah all of those look amazing! I can NOT wait to have access to an ice cream maker this summer!
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Perfect timing! I just bought an ice cream maker this weekend and have been looking for some recipes to try out this weekend. I think my favorite ice cream is strawberry cheesecake. Delish!
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Michelle on May 18th, 2011 at 2:00 pm
I had a strawberry cheesecake ice cream cone from a little place in Annapolis, MD. I *LOVED* it!! I need to try replicating it this summer!
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As much as I love all of the interesting flavors out there, when I get to the ice cream stand I always order soft serve vanilla with chocolate sprinkles.
Home is another story, though. I plan to try a bunch of your top 10 here. I know I will start with the salted caramel.
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Oh now you are really making me want an ice cream maker! I love ice cream. In this warm weather we’ve been having, my husband and I have been craving ice cream a lot in the evenings! I want to try some of these delicious looking recipes!
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I’m a vanilla fan through and through… although recently I’ve been wooed by Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream and the Dark Chocolate Ice Cream recipe I posted today!
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My favorite flavor is coffee and it is conspicuously among the missing.
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Michelle on May 18th, 2011 at 2:02 pm
Hi Elle, I do have an Espresso Ice Cream recipe, it just didn’t make my personal top 10 (probably because I’m not much of a coffee person!). Here it is:
http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2010/02/23/espresso-ice-cream/
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Nothing beats coffee ice cream! But I do love chocolate and cinnamon, too. An ice cream place I used to frequent in New Haven, CT (Ashley’s) used to have chocolate raspberry which was AMAZING. And coffee oreo. Mmmm. They rotated flavors (seemingly at random) so you never knew when they would have what, though.
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What a scrumptious looking post. Must check out your tutorial on making ice cream without an ice cream maker. All your photos are making me wish the sun would come out around here!
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OMG..I don’t think I could turn down any of those flavors. Butter pecan is my FAV!
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thank you for the list. i seriously want to try them all! my ice cream maker is getting a lot of use lately
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These look so tempting! Thanks for the list. I just got my mixer and am planning to get the ice cream maker attachment soon.
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I am completely in love with my Kitchenaid ice cream attachment. I have three pints of ice cream in my freezer right now and I’m having difficulty restraining myself from making another kind. With only myself and my boyfriend in the house, it doesn’t disappear as fast as I want to make it! Especially now that I have a new list from your top favorites!
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Yay…love these! I pulled out my ice cream maker at the end of last summer and had pretty decent success with the basic recipes I tried. This list has quite a few that I’d like to advance to this year…the butter pecan and salted caramel are standing out, for sure!! : )
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the pistachio ice cream looks very nom-able right now. First day of sun in a LONG TIME and I’m feeling springy.
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Oh man, I have to get out my ice cream maker for the season! I think my favorite ice cream I’ve made so far is pumpkin ice cream. Mmm.
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I wish I made my own ice cream… it looks so good! But Ben & Jerry’s has just brought out a new coconut flavour, so I’ll settle on that
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I’m such a classic vanilla girl. Your recipe is lovely!
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Since i am and ice cream fanatic this is my kind of post. LOVE IT! I have to try your salted ice cream recipe that you just recently did, just looks fabulous. That strawberry looks good too. Oh who am i kidding they all look fabulous
Here is something for you, it is a chocolate gelato recipe but it was out of this world. I am not a gelato fan but i loved it. Trust me you will love it too! – http://delishhh.com/2011/03/16/chocolate-gelato/
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Thanks for posting this compilation of recipes just in time for ice cream season! They look wonderful and I want to try the pistachio first. King Arthur’s most recent catalog has a chocolate ice cream that looks good, too.
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I LOVE ice cream and now I need to get that attachment for my mixer. Good thing I saw this before I bought one of those counter top ice cream makers (we have a crank one that requires ice and rock salt…two things we never keep on hand!). My favorite was a dark chocolate with a peanut butter ribbon and choc/PB candies that I had last summer at the little ice cream shack down the road. Yum!! We are blessed to live next to a cherry orchard here in MI, so we did make an outstanding custard with sweet cherries and dark chocolate….
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Shari on May 17th, 2011 at 2:30 pm
Jodi, I hope you see this!! I am your neighbor in IN…….I would love to know when the cherries are ready…I know it is early in the summer/late spring….
I love making cherry pie filling, plus this ice cream recipe sounds divine!!!!
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Jodi on June 20th, 2011 at 10:08 pm
Cherries are usually ready the end of June/early July. The Cherry Festival in Traverse City (pretty far north) is 4th of July weekend, so most will be ready by then. Yum!!
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Have you tried making ice cream using a non-dairy milk? I’ve never even made ice cream before, but now I have to! I just wouldn’t be able to eat any.
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Michelle on May 17th, 2011 at 7:54 pm
Hi Alisa, I have not but I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t use soy, almond or rice milk. Go for it!
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This post is magical! Thank you! I can’t wait to make the butter pecan and the salted caramel especially.
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I should not be reading this when dieting! My favorite flavor right now is peanut butter cup. Yum!
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All these recipes make me excited for summer! That butter pecan is calling my name.
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yummy, it is defininately time to get out the ice cream maker – I still use the old wood barrel / ice method, but we did modernize with an electric motor… LOL — cannot wait to try the salted caramel…
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Well, you know I love salted caramel and with praline bits? Think that would be my favorite. Ever since I was a young girl I’ve loved an ice cream called Butter Brickle. It’s not something I’ve ever seen in a grocery store so guess I should think of making my own huh?
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Yum, yum, yum! Those last two look really heavenly!!
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Ok!! I’m ready to get out my ice cream machine!! Where to start
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I just love homemade ice cream and I too almost always have some in my freezer. I just made D. Lebovitz’s Sour Strawberry Ice Cream and am looking forward to trying it. I think one of my favorites is Peanut Butter Ice Cream. I use the recipe from Annie’s Eats. It is delicious with some crumbled oreos. My hubby loves DL’s coffee ice cream. Looking forward to trying your pistachio ice cream for my dad. He’s both a pistachio and ice cream lover, so it’s perfect for him.
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I really want to get that ice cream attachment! Question – how do you store your ice cream?
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Michelle on May 18th, 2011 at 4:54 pm
Hi Liz, I store ice cream in airtight tupperware-style containers, like Rubbermaid or Lock-It.
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Mmmmm!!! All of these sound so delicious! Can’t wait to try some this summer.
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no cookie dough ones?!
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Michelle on May 20th, 2011 at 11:33 am
You know, I have yet to make cookie dough ice cream. It’s going to the top of my list!
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When i stumbled upon this post, i imediatly thought: bye bye diet… Somehow I managed to get the stenght to only try your ice cream recipes on weekends, so that means your recipes in my house at least once a week for at least 9 more weeks. This week was the butter pecan one. I must say i’m not a big fan of pecan nut ice cream, but this one was a huge sucess! Even my mum, that’s not a fan of deserts, ate her part till the very last piece! Thanks for making my week sweeter
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Oh my… all of these look amazing. I just got myself an ice cream machine and fully intend to try a few of these. Thanks for sharing!
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these look great, but this is my favorite for the warmer months
http://trialbyfirewin.blogspot.fr/2013/04/ginger-ice-cream.html
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