July 7, 2025

Recipe: No Churn Ice Cream!

It’s very hot in the American midwest right now. I’m constantly in a low-key state of Wanting Ice Cream, but I’ve never been able to justify buying myself an ice cream maker.

I think I originally found this recipe on Andrea Nguyen’s site. I couldn’t find it there when I went hunting this week, but she does have a fabulous sounding recipe for cinnamon and ginger ice cream, and her newsletter has a phenomenal one for lemongrass ice cream!

The main trick here is whipping the cream. You don’t need super stiff peaks, but you want it aerated enough that it’s soft when you scoop it out after freezing.

When I make this, I’m usually making it with coffee–I love the slight bitterness of coffee in ice cream, and I love how it reminds me of eating an affogato, one of my favorite treats. But this is a very simple base that you can easily customize with any flavors you like. Purée some strawberries or bananas! add smashed pumpkin and clove! stir in some candied walnuts or pecans! crush up some oreos! Heck, get fancy and steep some lavender or thyme or something in honey and add it to the recipe.

How’s the book going, Sarah:

Pencils are off getting scrutinized by the publisher, and I’m deep into colors. I have 62/192 pages colored right now, and 5-6 weeks to do the rest, so I’ve got to average 20-24 pages each week. Hopefully that’s not too insane of a pace, and coloring is my favorite part, but I’m not out of the woods yet.

What I’m into lately:

I randomly picked up an audiobook of Rachel Harrison’s Bad Dolls and I’ve been loving it. I loved her books The Return and Black Sheep, so no surprise that I like this too. It’s a short story collection, and the stories are all creepy, but also very relatable and surprisingly emotional. I also finally got around to reading Trung Le Nguyen’s Magic Fish, and it’s breathtakingly beautiful. His work is so heartbreakingly gorgeous, and the story is deeply personal and touching. Highly recommend both.

What Toki’s into lately:

This little jagoff has started waking me up at 3 in the morning lately. Not because he’s hungry – he has plenty of food – because he wants me to watch him eat it. This is not cool. I’ve been looking at photos of him when he was just a tiny little bean. I’m hoping to remind myself not to murder him.