Egg-free vanilla ice cream (Philadelphia style)

Pure, creamy vanilla with no egg yolks — fresh, milky and ready without cooking a custard.

American “Philadelphia-style” ice cream is made with nothing but milk, cream and sugar. Without yolks, the clean flavour of cream and vanilla shines through, and the ice cream is lighter and quicker to make. Skimmed milk powder stands in for the missing yolks: its proteins bind water and help hold air, so the ice cream stays smooth. Dextrose keeps it softer, so you can scoop it straight from a home freezer.

Type: Classic cream ice cream · Servings: 8 · Difficulty: Easy

Equipment

Ingredients

  • 450 g whole milk 3.5 %
  • 400 g whipping cream 33 %
  • 35 g skimmed milk powder (replaces the yolks — body and smoothness)
  • 140 g granulated sugar (sucrose)
  • 30 g dextrose (glucose powder)
  • 3 g vanilla pod (1 pod)

Making the mix

  1. Split the vanilla pod lengthways and scrape out the seeds.
  2. Mix the milk powder and dextrose with the granulated sugar (mixed dry, they won’t form lumps).
  3. Heat the milk, cream, vanilla seeds and pod in a pan to about 70 °C, add the sugar and milk powder mixture and stir until dissolved.
  4. Take off the heat, cover and leave to infuse for 20 minutes.
  5. Cool the mix in a bowl set in iced water.
  6. Cover and age in the fridge for at least 4 hours, ideally overnight. Remove the pod before churning.

Method — Compressor ice cream maker

  1. Switch on the ice cream maker 5–10 minutes ahead so the bowl can pre-chill.
  2. Pour in the chilled mix no higher than the fill line (with a smaller bowl, churn in two batches) and churn for 30–40 minutes, until it has the consistency of thick whipped cream.
  3. Transfer to a chilled container, press cling film onto the surface and leave to harden in the freezer for 2 hours.

Total time: 7 h 25 min

Method — Freezer-bowl ice cream maker

  1. Take the frozen bowl out of the freezer just before use, fit the paddle and switch the machine on.
  2. With the machine running, pour in the chilled mix — no more than two-thirds full; freeze the rest as a second batch.
  3. Churn for 20–30 minutes, until the ice cream thickens. There’s no point going longer — by then the bowl has warmed up.
  4. Transfer to a chilled container and leave to harden in the freezer for 3 hours.

Freeze the bowl for at least 24 hours beforehand (until you can no longer hear the coolant sloshing inside). The mix must be thoroughly chilled.

Total time: 8 h 15 min

Method — Ninja CREAMi and similar machines

  1. Divide the chilled mix between CREAMi tubs, filling each no higher than the MAX line (a full batch makes about two standard tubs).
  2. Put the lids on and freeze on a level surface for 24 hours.
  3. Place a tub in the machine and run the Ice Cream program.
  4. If the ice cream is crumbly or powdery, run Re-spin (many users add 1–2 tablespoons of milk first).

Programme: Ice Cream

A standard tub holds about 470 ml, a Deluxe tub about 700 ml. Don’t fill above the MAX line, and freeze it level — the machine doesn’t handle an uneven block well.

Total time: 28 h 55 min

Method — No-machine method

  1. Pour the chilled mix into a deep metal or glass container (a baking dish, for example) and put it in the freezer.
  2. After 45 minutes, stir the mix thoroughly with a whisk, spatula or stick blender, working the frozen edges into the centre.
  3. Repeat every 30 minutes, 4–5 times in all, until the ice cream is thick and smooth.
  4. Leave to harden for another hour.

Without a machine you get more ice crystals and less air, so the ice cream is denser. Every stir breaks up the crystals, so don’t skip any.

Total time: 8 h 50 min

Method — Salt and ice (bucket, ball, bag)

  1. Pour about 250 ml of the chilled mix into a small zip-lock bag, squeeze out the air and seal it tightly. To be safe, put it inside a second bag.
  2. Put about 1 kg of crushed ice and 200 g of coarse salt into a large, sturdy bag or a lidded tub and mix.
  3. Bury the bag of mix in the ice, close the large bag and shake and turn it for 10–15 minutes. Wear gloves or use a tea towel — salted ice is much colder than ice alone.
  4. When the mix has thickened, take out the bag, rinse it under cold water so no salt gets inside, and serve the ice cream straight away.

Fun for children and a physics experiment too: salt lowers the melting point of ice, so the salty slush is well below zero. With a hand-crank bucket freezer, layer ice and salt around the metal canister and crank for 20–30 minutes. Children should wear gloves.

Total time: 5 h 5 min

Stages

Preparation
10 min
Cooking
10 min
Cooling
30 min
Ageing in the fridge
4 h
Churning
35 min
Hardening in the freezer
2 h
Total time
7 h 25 min

Serving and storage

Take it out of the freezer (−18 °C) and let it stand for 5–10 minutes until it scoops easily. It tastes best at −12 to −14 °C.

Without yolks it hardens faster in the freezer — eat it within 5 days, while it’s at its best. Press cling film directly onto the surface.

Tips

  • Don’t throw away the scraped pod — rinse it, dry it and bury it in sugar. In a few weeks you’ll have vanilla sugar.
  • Instead of a pod you can use 1 teaspoon of good vanilla paste or 2 teaspoons of extract; add extract only to the chilled mix.
  • For children, use it as a base and add grated chocolate or a fruit sauce when serving.
  • An egg-free mix can be churned after just 1 hour in the fridge, but after a night of ageing the ice cream is smoother and holds air better.

Why it works

Without yolks there is no lecithin, which helps the fat globules link into an air-holding network during freezing. The milk proteins from the milk powder and the cream itself partly take over that role. Ageing in the fridge lets the fat crystallise and the proteins bind water — which is why a mix made the day before freezes smoother.

Sources