Get ready for the ULTIMATE cookie dough ice cream! This is cookie dough flavored ice cream filled with cookie dough chunks and mini chocolate chips. The ice cream itself actually tastes like cookie dough! No ice cream maker is needed for this easy no-churn recipe.
If you’ve ever thought that cookie dough ice cream could use more cookie dough, this recipe is for you! This ice cream is absolutely packed with cookie dough – it’s incredible! Try our cookie dough brownies, too!
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What makes this cookie dough ice cream the best
The ice cream base tastes like cookie dough: Instead of a typical vanilla ice cream as the base, this recipe uses a combination of browned butter, brown sugar, vanilla, and chocolate chips to make the ice cream itself taste like cookie dough!
Lots of mix-ins: One of our biggest complaints about store bought ice cream is that there aren’t enough mix-ins. We made sure to pack our ice cream with lots of cookie dough chunks and mini chocolate chips.
No-churn: No ice cream maker, no problem! You will still get an incredible smooth and creamy ice cream with this no-churn technique.
Recipe overview
*Full recipe below in recipe card*
Cookie dough chunks: start by making a small batch of (egg-free) chocolate chip cookie dough. Place the cookie dough in the refrigerator to firm up while you continue with the ice cream base.
Ice cream base: a combination of browned butter, brown sugar, sweetend condensed milk, vanilla, and whipped cream make this delicious ice cream base.
Assembly: layer the ice cream base, mini chocolate chips, and pieces of cookie dough into a freezer safe container (I use a loaf pan) and place it in the freezer overnight.
What makes the ice cream taste like cookie dough?
A combination of browned butter, brown sugar, vanilla extract, and chocolate chips flavor the ice cream base giving it a deeper, richer flavor than plain vanilla ice cream (which you typically see in cookie dough ice cream).
How to brown butter
Brown butter is butter that has been cooked until the milk solids in the butter begin to toast/brown. The flavor is unmatched, brown butter tastes nutty and rich with a deep toffee-like flavor.
DIRECTIONS: Place the butter in a saucepan set over medium-low heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until browned bits form on the bottom of the pan and the butter begins to turn golden and smell nutty. Cool to rom temperature before proceeding with the recipe.
Optional step: heat treating flour
The mix-in for this ice cream is a raw cookie dough. The cookie dough is eggless, so you don’t have to worry about bacteria from raw eggs, but there is a minimal risk related to eating raw flour. If you are concerned about this you can heat treat the flour for the cookie dough pieces. Place the flour in a microwave safe bowl and heat on high for 1 minute. Cool and then proceed with cookie dough preparation.
Recipe tips
- Allow the brown butter to cool completely; it should be room temperature. This takes about 15-20 minutes.
- Keep your heavy whipping cream in the fridge until you’re ready to use it.
- This ice cream is best if it has had a chance to freeze overnight. You can eat it within about 10 hours of freezing it, but it will be on the softer side.
- Be sure to make your cookie dough pieces fairly small so that they can be evenly distributed through the ice cream.
- Use mini chocolate chips instead of regular sized chocolate chips for better distribution.
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Recipe
Cookie Dough Ice Cream
Ingredients
Cookie dough pieces:
- ¼ cup unsalted butter, softened
- 3 tablespoons packed brown sugar, I use dark
- 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon milk
- ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- ⅓ cup all purpose flour
- pinch salt
- ⅓ cup mini chocolate chips
Ice cream:
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 tablespoons packed brown sugar , I use dark
- 1 scant cup sweetened condensed milk
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups chilled heavy whipping cream, straight from the fridge
- ⅓ cup mini chocolate chips
Instructions
Cookie dough:
- Using a hand mixer or stand mixer, butter and sugars for 1 minute, until creamy and well combined. Beat in milk and vanilla extract. Add the flour and salt and mix until combined. Stir in chocolate chips.
- Place the cookie dough in the refrigerator to firm up while you prepare the ice cream.
Ice cream:
- In a small saucepan, over medium-low heat, melt the butter. Cook the butter until it is light brown and smells nutty, stirring occasionally, and being careful not to let it burn. If you've never browned butter before, see this tutorial. Transfer the browned butter and all the browned bits into a medium-sized bowl and stir in 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar. Cool to room temperature, about 15 minutes or so.
- Once the butter has cooled, add the sweetened condensed milk and vanilla into the butter/brown sugar mixture and whisk until well combined.
- In a separate bowl, using a hand mixer or stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat heavy cream until stiff peaks form. Add half of the condensed milk mixture to the whipped cream and carefully fold it in. Add the remaining condensed mixture to the cream and fold it in. Fold in most of the chocolate chips, reserving a few to sprinkle on top, if desired.
- Transfer half of the ice cream into a freezer-safe container (I use a loaf pan). Top with half of the cookie dough, pinching it off into small bite sized pieces. Top with the remaining ice cream and then the remaining cookie dough pieces and reserved chocolate chips. Cover tightly and freeze overnight.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional Information is an estimate based on third-party calculations and may vary based on products used and serving sizes.
Tried this recipe?Leave a comment and rating below!
Jay
It has more of a dulce de leche flavor than cookie dough, in my opinion. I followed the recipe exactly as written.
Celebrating Sweets
There is a nutty-caramely flavor in the base of the ice cream from the butter and brown sugar.
Mason
I love how this cookie dough ice cream is more than just a simple vanilla ice cream with cookie dough pieces. The base is so good!! However, the fat ratio is not quite right. The use of whole milk makes it have an icy texture instead of creamy. Instead of using Whole milk, next time I’m going to try to replace it with heavy whipping cream. Other than that, load up with the cookie dough! It’s the best part 🙂
Celebrating Sweets
Thanks for sharing your experience. I find that if the ice cream sits out and softens a bit it’s much more creamy than when it is straight from the freezer.
Angelina Gold
The only real issue I had was with the cookie dough recipe. The goop it produced would not solidify, but with two small spoons and a little effort I managed to make it work in the ice cream. The finished product froze over nicely when placed in a loaf pan overnight in the freezer, with a layer of cling wrap pressed against the surface to prevent freezer burn. Tasty!
Antoinette E. Stokes
Thank you!
Sandy
When you say ice cream maker do you mean the older kind or the new ones that you freeze in the freezer? I guess you can tell I am older and we always used the large maker with the paddle inside.
Celebrating Sweets
It should have a frozen insert and a paddle for churning.
Rahul Yadav
Oh yum! This looks amazing! And totally worth the calories.
Stephanie Abedrabbo
How many servings?
Celebrating Sweets
It’s about ten 1/3 cup servings.
wilhelmina
This is a cookie dough lover’s heaven! I am totally in the camp of eating cookie dough ice cream for the chunks of dough and this ice cream delivers! So good!
Isabel Palmer
Hey so i haven’t tried the recipie yet but as I was reading it I noticed that you haven’t recommended to heat treat the flour and this is a large safety concern due to flour potentially containing dangerous bacteria such as E Coli. Other than this the recipe looks amazing and will defiantly try it just please look into the risks with non heat treated flour 🙂
Maria Brann
How much does this recipe yield?
Allison
Around 1 1/2 quarts (6-ish cups).
krysta Wolfangel
My review is for the cookie dough only. I made plain vanilla ice cream to put the cookie dough in.. My kids and I agree that the recipe needs to be DOUBLE the amount for the volume of ice cream the recipe makes. But maybe for you, the amount is correct! Its just something to be aware of when making this! Its very good!