Cinnamon Ice Cream
I’ll be completely honest with you. I was both excited and nervous about making this ice cream. Excited, obviously, because it’s cinnamon ice cream and it’s now September and I had all kinds of delicious visions of apple pie with cinnamon ice cream dancing in my head. A little nervous because, well, I was afraid that the ice cream might taste like a giant piece of Big Red gum. Not that there’s anything wrong with Big Red, but it’s just so, well, cinnamon-y in an obnoxious-drunk-person-at-the-bar kind of way. I was so elated when I took my first freshly-churned spoonful and the clean, light cinnamon flavor danced around my mouth in a graceful-ballerina kind of way.
Now aside from the obvious pairings of pies and crisps, I thought that this ice cream would make a fabulous base for a sundae with sauteed apples and a drizzle of caramel. My suspicions were correct – this is a fantastic combination of warm and cold, sweet and tart. A fabulous way to enjoy an ice cream sundae once the fall season settles in. Love. Love, love, love.

Cinnamon Ice Cream
Ingredients:
1 cup whole milk
ยพ cup granulated sugar
Pinch of salt
Ten 3-inch cinnamon sticks, broken up
2 cups heavy cream, divided
5 egg yolks
Directions:
1. Warm the milk, sugar, salt, cinnamon sticks and 1 cup of the heavy cream in a medium saucepan. Once warm, cover, remove from the heat, and let steep at room temperature for 1 hour.
2. Rewarm the cinnamon-infused milk mixture. Remove the cinnamon sticks with a slotted spoon and discard them. Pour the remaining 1 cup heavy cream into a large bowl and set a mesh strainer on top.
3. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.
4. Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula (should reach 170 degrees F on an instant-read thermometer). Pour the custard through the strainer and into the cream. Stir until cool over an ice bath.
5. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, preferably overnight, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's directions.
Did you make this recipe?
Leave a review below, then snap a picture and tag @thebrowneyedbaker on Instagram so I can see it!
(Recipe adapted from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz)
All images and text ยฉ
Looks like a bowlfull of Heaven.
Plan B
In my hometown, the local ice cream shop made cinnamon ice cream and it was always the first to sell out! And that says a lot in a world of chocolate ice creams!
I’m so glad to have your recipe! :)
Well I LOVE Big Red gum – not that we get it very often over here in NZ!! I’m lucky enough to live on a sheep and beef farm and we have our own farm milk/cream from the house-cow and eggs from our chooks. I love making ice-cream and I love cinnamon, so I will definitely be trying your recipe very soon! Thx so much :)-
i can smell this from here,..looks so perfect
yum, now i just need an ice cream maker:-)
This is one of my all time favourite ice cream flavours! I adore cinnamon but its so hard to find here. I’ve never seen it sold in the shops – only from specialist ice cream places. How I wish I had an ice cream machine to make my own. Yours looks divine and so creamy and smooth
I love cinnamon, although I’m glad to hear this ice cream isn’t too over powering. It sounds and looks great!
This would be sooo good on top of a fruit cobbler!
I’m glad you got past the initial fears and made it… and that was wonderful. This is the first Perfect Scoop recipe I declared was “a must,” yet here I am one year later and still haven’t made it. We’d get cinnamon ice cream as a treat once a year when it was available from Schwann’s. My grandma would buy a tub and we’d go to town. It was incredible. Nothing at all like Big Red gum, thankfully. Now we know we can make it all year long without worry. And I hope to do just that!
Cheers,
*Heather*
This sounds so good. It will be excellent with apple pie at Thanksgiving.
Seriously just gorgeous! I need a bowl at this instant for breakfast :)
Yum, this flavor sounds delicious! Great with any sort of pie, maybe pumpkin pie. Or with a berry crisp- I am drooling!
I can almost smell the cool cinnamon ice cream and those warmed apple slices!
Glad to hear that it wasn’t over powering and looks so good with those apples. Yum!
Yummy! I think it would be awesome to add some brown sugar in place of some white sugar to make this even more caramelly and fall-like. We have an ice cream place here in the south that has a cinnamon ice cream and a pumpkin ice cream in the fall. I love having a scoop of each!
Love it! I made cinnamon spice ice cream last year, and now it’s one of my favorite ice cream flavors!!
This could actually be my favorite ice cream recipe I’ve made to date. I loved it so much. I made it for Thanksgiving last year and everyone is requesting it again. The sundae looks fabulous.
I’m an avowed cinnamonaholic; but not sure I can recall having cinnamon ice cream. I would love it topped with some melted Mexican chocolate…which is tinged with a bit of cinnamon. Have a feeling my not recalling status to change very soon. Appreciate the recipe!
This ice cream is perfect for the fall weather! I would love a massive bowl of this right now!
It looks delicious and I’m going to have to try it . . . as I was reading your post my eyes kept going back to the picture looking for little brown specs, but then I read through the recipe and I love that the flavor comes from steeping the cinnamon sticks in the warm milk. My current fave homemade ice cream is chai latte, and this past weekend I experimented with chai latte popsicles . . . so I’m thinking that the cinnamon would be bringing the spices down a notch and have a more subtle flavor . . . this is on the list to try . . . but I also appreciate the tip from Heather about Schwann’s!