How to Make Ice Cream at Home in a Bag

How to make ice cream at home with baggies with heavy cream is so fun!! Easy activity to do with your kids with a few ingredients, no churn without the need of an ice cream maker. Watch our video and make this dessert tonight!

How to Make Ice Cream in a Bag

Anything new is fun to do with kids. When you can get them involved in the kitchen “cooking” it’s even better! This not only tastes good, and is somewhat of a Science experiment but is a fun way to see how easy it is to make your own frozen treat. Yes of course you can use a Ninja creami ice cream machine but that isn’t nearly as interactive.

We are going to show you the easiest way making a batch of vanilla which you should start with first. You can of course add some sprinkles or something but this one is easiest and can be dressed up later once it is done.

How to make Ice Cream Without Ice Cream Maker

That is right, all you need is good old fashioned elbow grease sorta. You can let everyone make their own batch too!! Fill each bag with ingredients listed below, or cut in half for a smaller bowlful. Let each child shake shake shake until it freezes and doesn’t have to share with anyone!

How do you make ice cream in a ziplock?

You are going to need some Ice cream salt which is much larger than table salt, that won’t work.Half and half or heavy whipping cream is the liquid that will turn more solid the longer you knead it. Then you have all the mix ins you can sprinkle on the top later, or mix inside.

Ok so you don’t want to head to the store to get just one ingredient, you don’t have to. In this event you can make it at home, almost as good, with a few items. Just in case you don’t have any of this, or enough for a few bags full you can make it yourself with;

How do you make homemade heavy whipping cream?

1. For 1 cup mix
   1. add 2/3 cup of whole milk
   2. plus 1/3 cup melted butter

What is a non dairy substitute for heavy cream?

You can in fact make this lactose free if you need it. You can use full-fat coconut cream, evaporated milk, cashew cream, I’ve even heard of people using pureed tofu.

1. Sugar
2. Vanilla extract
3. Large gallon sized freezer bag
   1. to hold your ice and salt
4. Pint size freezer plastic bag
   1. for your ice cream mixture
5. Towel – so you won’t freezer your hands
6. Whip cream for topping if you want
7. Small toppings are optional

As you can see you aren’t going to use the typical ice cream base ingredients. If you use an ice cream machine a lot of recipes call for sweetened condensed milk, heavy cream and/or cream and milk. This one uses very few ingredients which is nice.  If you haven’t made frozen desserts at home yourself this is a great starting point.

How can I make ice cream at home?

It’s really easy from start to finish. 10 minutes later and it was done!! A great kid’s activity to do at a Girl Scout meeting, sleepover, or on a rainy or lazy day because the kids loved it!! Here is how you make this homemade ice cream recipe.

Can you make ice cream in a bag with regular salt?

This is what the ice cream salt looks like, regular table salt WILL NOT work nearly as well or at all in our experience. It’s very chunky and allows the ice to get COLD COLD COLDER. That is why you really need a hand towel to wrap around it while you’re shaking. Otherwise you hands will become completely numb and that isn’t fun.

This is how to make ice cream at home using just two bags.You will want to fill a gallon freezer bag halfway full of ice. Then add 1/2 c. of Kosher or Ice Cream salt (I chose ice cream salt because it was cheaper).

How to Make Homemade Ice Cream in a Bag

1. Now fill a pint or quart sized freezer bag with 1 c. half and half, 1 tbsp. vanilla, 2 tbsp. sugar, and any other things you’d like such as crushed chocolate chips, sprinkles etc.
   • you can use a food processor to make filling pieces fine so they mix in well.
2. Put the pint sized bag into the ice (take all air out of that bag)
3. Seal the gallon freezer bag after eliminating all the air out of that bag too
4. Wrap a towel around the whole thing and use that to hold it (so you don’t freeze)
5. Now start shaking!!
6. You will shake, and shake, and shake…oh and shake some more until you can feel the inside bag and it is as thick as you want it to be.

Tips

Once again, I would HIGHLY suggest putting a dish towel around the bag when you or your kids shake. Making this can get quite cold after a few minutes of shaking. We shook it over the sink because it began to drip water a bit, but not too badly. Great family fun to do that is inexpensive and yummy too!

I let my kids do this part because it is fun for them and yes they have a lot more energy than I do. You can pass it around from you to them and back again for a while and check in between and let everyone decide when enough is enough and you’re ready to dig in.

This time we didn’t add any sprinkles or anything we just made vanilla ice cream and it was quite delicious. Make sure you rinse off the outside of your inner pint bag so the salt doesn’t get mixed into your ice crystals when you scoop it out. That can be kinda’ yucky.

Can you overchurn ice cream?

You can, that is why your creation may taste a bit gritty. All you need is the texture you would find in a half gallon container. At that time enjoy it or put it into tupperware and freeze for later to make Make a layered ice cream pie. If you’re looking for more fun and cheap things to do with kids check these ideas out

Printable directions are below in case you want to keep a copy in your recipe book. Nutritional information will vary depending on the add ins inside your mixture. Whether you need a birthday craft to do with a group, or something to do on the weekend I guarantee everyone will love this no churn ice cream.

Making dessert in our Ninja Creami ice cream machine with the kids is fun too. You can even add it into our party punch recipe for even more yummy fun!