Kids in the Kitchen: How to Make Blackberry Ice Cream

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My kids love ice cream and, since we’re all about incorporating real-life skills into our daily living, I taught them how to make blackberry ice cream!

In addition to growing a sizeable garden in our backyard each summer, we also signed up to get a local farm share. You could say we love fresh fruits and veggies. When we received a bunch of blackberries in our farm share, I wanted to do something other than “just” eat them. I mean, we’d all be plenty happy to “just” eat blackberries by the handful, but I wanted to take them up a notch, ya know?

Enter: homemade blackberry ice cream. The recipe is super duper easy and perfect for letting the kids help or…if you’re feeling up to it…just let the kids make it by themselves! Really, it’s that easy.

If you love blackerries, you’re definitely going to enjoy this recipe! Even if you don’t have blackberries, they can easily be swapped for cherries, strawberries, raspberries, or blueberries. I’m probably missing a berry or two, but you get the point!

Before we get started, I have to tell you that, when we first started making this recipe for blackberry ice cream, I wanted to have the kids make it in a bag. When making ice cream in a bag, you put all the ingredients in a zip bag and then put THAT zip bag inside another zip bag that has ice and ice cream salt in it. Then, to turn the mixture into ice cream, you shake the bag again and again. It’s a lot of fun and can also serve as a science experiment for the kids.

I TRIED to do this. I really did, but, when I was shopping for all the supplies and ingredients, I’m thinking I made a mistake by getting store brand zip bags because every.single.bag we took out of the box had holes in them. Ugh! For that reason, when making this blackberry ice cream recipe, we’re going with the good ol’ “stick the mix in the freezer and wait overnight” route. If you have an ice cream maker, that would work even better, but, alas, we do not have an ice cream maker.

Anyways, let’s get down to business and learn how to make blackberry ice cream, shall we?

Ingredients needed for Blackberry Ice Cream

• 12 oz of fresh blackberries (I’m willing to bet you could use frozen blackberries if you have them!)
• 2 cups of heavy cream
• 1 T vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup white sugar (make this recipe keto by using a sugar substitute!)
• zest of 1 lemon (could use less if you prefer)
• 1/2 cup milk (I used skim because that’s what we had, but any % should work)

Gadgets and Tools for making Blackberry Ice Cream

• blender
• mesh strainer
• a tablespoon
• measuring cup for dry ingredients
• measuring cup for wet ingredients
• freezer-safe containers (we actually used the containers that come when purchasing pre-sliced lunchmeat!)
• spoon to mix everything together
• mixing bowls (I love the Oxo ones that are linked! They hold up great and have grips on the bottom – I’ve been using the same set for 14 years now!)
• Microplaner (to zest the lemon! I use mine to grate fresh parmesan, too!)

NOTE: if you do not have a blender, this food mill would work well and would do the job of both the blender and the mesh strainers. I have this exact set and use it when I’m canning tomatoes every year.

How to Make Blackberry Ice Cream

1. Wash your blackberries then put them into your blender to turn them into a puree.
2. Set your mesh strainer on top of your mixing bowl and pour the pureed blackberries in.
3. Using the back of a spoon, press the puree mix through the strainer. This will result in a seed-free puree in the mixing bowl while all the seeds are left in the strainer.
4. Dispose of the blackberry seeds OR…you could set them aside to try growing some blackberry plants with the seeds!
5. Add the remaining ingredients to the mixing bowl and mix well to combine all ingredients.
6. Pour blackberry ice cream mix into a freezer safe container with a lid. Freeze overnight.
7. Enjoy!

This blackberry ice cream is so delicious and especially refreshing on a hot summer day. We enjoy the ice cream “plain,” but I do think it would be delicious with toppings such as:

• coconut
• chocolate chips
• peanut butter sauce (kind of like a pbj ice cream?)
• chocolate sauce
• marshmallow sauce
• graham cracker crumbles
• sprinkles/jimmies (which do you say? We’re Team Sprinkles over here)

When you take the container of blackberry ice cream out of your freezer, it’ll most likely be pretty hard. You can either suffer wait a few minutes for it to warm up or invest in an antifreeze ice cream scoop! The antifreeze ice cream scoop should glide through the ice cream pretty easily. We use ours all the time – just make sure that you always hand wash (ick) it and never put it in the dishwasher. #beentheredonethat

It’s super easy to make homemade blackberry ice cream with the kids! If you get a chance to try out the recipe, I’d love to hear how you like it!

If you’re interested in another delicious, and super easy, recipe to do with the kids, you definitely need to check out our refrigerator pickle recipe! They are a family favorite and we look forward to making them each and every year.

Until next time, stay safe and enjoy quality time with your family,