Making this Homemade Ice Cream in a Bag recipe is fun and easy to do with kids. You just need a few ingredients to make it and the ice cream is ready in less than 30 minutes!
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Why this ice cream recipe is awesome
- Fun for kids to make
- Cool to watch ice cream form before your eyes
- Very versatile - you can make a variety of ice cream flavors
- Kids will learn as they perform this homemade ice cream in a bag science experiment
Ingredients
All you need are the ingredients below (plus ice of course) to make delicious chocolate chip ice cream.
How to make ice cream in a bag
This homemade ice cream will be made in zip top bags. You will want a gallon sized bag and a quart sized bag. Simply pour your ingredients into the quart sized bag and close. Make sure the bag is tightly sealed.
Fill the gallon sized bag with crushed ice and ice cream salt.
Put the smaller bag with the cream into the ice filled gallon sized bag. Make sure this bag is tightly sealed as well.
Now it's time to shake and squeeze the bag to make ice cream. Our hands got pretty cold doing this step since it takes about 10 minutes for the ice cream to form. We used pot holders and took turns shaking the bag to keep our hands from getting too cold.
After 10 minutes, your ice cream will be ready to eat! You can just grab a spoon and eat it out of the bag or put it in a bowl and eat as you would traditional ice cream.
Be sure to eat your homemade ice cream before it melts. I find homemade ice cream like this tends to melt quicker than store bought ice cream. It has never been an issue for us, because we eat it so quickly.
Homemade Ice Cream in a Bag
Ingredients
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- ⅛ teaspoon vanilla
- 3 tablespoons chocolate chips
- 5 cups crushed ice
- ¾ cup rock salt or table salt
- 1 gallon sized zip top bag
- 1 quart sized zip top bag
Instructions
- In a quart sized zip top bag, add cream, sugar, vanilla extract and chocolate chips. Seal bag.
- In a gallon sized zip top bag, add crushed ice and rock salt.
- Place the small bag with the cream into the larger bag with the ice and seal the larger bag.
- Shake and squeeze for 10 minutes or until the cream has started to harden and turn into ice cream.
- Remove from the bag and serve.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
For more cool summer treats check out these recipes from the Kids' Kitchen bloggers:
Strawberry-Peach Ice Cream Float| The Gifted Gabber
Kids’ Kitchen: Berry Yummy and Healthy Protein-Rich Popsicles | Living Montessori Now
Strawberry Creamsicles | Kitchen Counter Chronicles
Frequently asked questions
You can use table salt for this recipe. The ice cream will set in a little less time with the ice cream salt, but table salt will be just fine.
We have made it in different ways including using half and half instead of heavy whipping cream.
You can freeze the leftovers. We have frozen leftover ice cream to have at a later point. It will be pretty hard when it comes out of the freezer, so just let it thaw for a minute or two.
This recipe uses whole cream instead of half and half. You can also substitute an equal amount of whole milk if you don't have cream or half and half. If you use milk, the ice cream will be less creamy.
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Paula
What a fun idea - we used to have an ice cream maker, and I'd never thought to use a bag instead. Nothing beats the taste of fresh ice cream!
Senda
So lovely. Thanks for the guide and photos.
Kylie
It doesn't even work . I spent over 30 minutes making it because it never formed. Dont listen to them and get an ice cream maker it's easier
Nadya A De Leon
It worked for us. We followed the instructions just as they are and we got some tasty ice cream out of it 😊 It was a workout but taking turns did help.
Jenni
Thank yiu for this simple, kid-fun recipe! We used a dairy-free whipping cream and it set in about 7 minutes.