No-churn matcha ice cream
Three ingredients, fifteen minutes of work and a night in the freezer. Creamy matcha ice cream with no machine and no stirring every hour.
Preparation
15 min
Cooking
6 h
Total
6 h 15 min
Servings
10
Level
Easy
Homemade ice cream usually needs one of two things: a machine, or stirring the mixture with a fork every hour so it doesn't freeze into a solid block. This recipe needs neither. Whipped cream brings the air, and sweetened condensed milk brings sugar and body, which keep the ice crystals small. You transfer the mixture to a container once and leave it alone.
The one step you can't skip is the matcha paste. Powder tipped straight into whipped cream makes green lumps you can't break up without losing the fluffiness. Rub it smooth with a few spoonfuls of condensed milk first.
Use culinary matcha. Its strong, bold flavour cuts through the sweetness of the condensed milk and doesn't fade in the freezer. Delicate ceremonial matcha would get lost under the sugar here. A serving (a tenth of the batch) has about 40 mg of caffeine, roughly as much as a can of cola — worth remembering if you serve it to children.
Ingredients
500 ml whipping cream (30–36% fat), well chilled
400 g sweetened condensed milk
12 g culinary matcha
5 ml vanilla extract (optional)
30 g chopped pistachios, for sprinkling (optional)
Preparation
1
Keep the cream in the fridge until the last moment — only very cold cream whips to stiff peaks.
2
Sift the matcha into a large bowl. Add 3–4 tablespoons of condensed milk and rub it with a spoon until you have a smooth, lump-free paste.
3
Pour in the rest of the condensed milk and the vanilla, and stir into an even green mixture.
4
In a second bowl, whip the cold cream to stiff peaks — until the whisk starts leaving clear trails on the surface. Stop the mixer at that point, because cream whipped any longer will start to split.
5
Stir a third of the whipped cream vigorously into the green mixture to loosen it. Add the rest of the cream in two batches and fold it in gently with a spatula, from the bottom up, until no white streaks remain.
6
Transfer the mixture to a container of about 1.5 litres and level the top. Cover it with cling film pressed directly onto the surface so no frost settles on it.
7
Freeze for at least 6 hours, ideally overnight. There's no need to stir it.
8
Take the ice cream out of the freezer 5–10 minutes before serving so it scoops easily. Scoop into bowls and sprinkle with pistachios. Kept tightly covered, the ice cream tastes best within two weeks.
