Ice cream is a kid-favorite dessert (and let’s face it, adults too!), but store-bought ones often contain high fructose corn syrup, artificial colors and flavors, or other ingredients that we avoid.
Enter making ice cream at home! This butter pecan ice cream recipe is a healthy and incredibly delicious alternative to store-bought ice cream. It’s also really simple to make at home.
Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
Healthy Ice Cream? Really?
Well, yes and no. Ice cream still contains plenty of sugar and should always be considered a treat. However, since I make my own I can control which ingredients I use and avoid those that I don’t like.
The ingredients I like include real maple syrup and raw honey instead of refined sugar from sugar beets. I leave out all the stabilizers, thickeners, preservatives, and artificial colors and flavors.
Most of all, it’s really fun to be able to customize the ice cream to make exactly the combination that I’m in the mood for! Which is what I did when I wanted butter pecan ice cream.
Homemade Butter Pecan Ice Cream
Ever wonder where the butter in butter pecan ice cream comes in? I did too, but Google wasn’t a very big help. If anyone out there knows, I’d love to hear about it!
Since I didn’t find a satisfactory answer from a quick search I decided to interpret the name literally and use butter. I browned the butter in a saucepan to give it a nice toasty flavor.
Then, I stirred in maple syrup, honey, and whole milk and heated it just until it was warm. Once it was warm I whisked in the egg yolks. It’s important to make sure that the milk mixture is just lukewarm to start with or you’ll scramble your egg yolks. If you do accidentally scramble them at some point, just strain the finished product before refrigerating it.
After that, I heated and stirred the mixture until it was nice and thick, then stirred in the heavy cream and vanilla.
Important Note: The final step before freezing is to make sure the ice cream base is well chilled. If you try to churn a warm ice cream mixture it will take far longer to freeze or may not even freeze at all.
Do I Need an Ice Cream Maker?
Need? No. I know ice cream makers aren’t the cheapest appliances so I understand the hesitancy. And if you’ve never made ice cream before and you’re not sure whether you’re going to do it more than once, you may want to try an alternative method first.
There’s always the classic tin can method. It’s a super fun science project for kids. And this article describes four other options. Just know that if you choose one of these methods, your ice cream will freeze more firmly than ice cream churned in a machine.
However, I love my ice cream maker and the soft, creamy ice cream it produces. I get enough use out of it that I consider it a completely worthwhile investment. Also, because homemade ice cream is so much cheaper to make than store-bought (not to mention healthier), I’m really saving money in the long run, right?
I’ll let you judge for yourself whether homemade ice cream is delicious enough to warrant buying an ice cream maker. I sure think it is though, so without further ado, here’s the recipe so you can try it for yourself:
Butter Pecan Ice Cream Recipe
Servings
Equipment
Nutrition
Notes
Like this recipe? Check out my new cookbook, or get all my recipes (over 500!) in a personalized weekly meal planner here!
Next on our list to make: Mint chip, raspberry chip, mocha, and others…. what is your favorite?
What is the inside of your ice cream maker consist of? Aluminum or non-stick?
Aluminum
Okay, used the recipe exactly. Even bought this ice cream maker!! Did not work. What did I do?? What can I do?? I really want this recipe to work!
Would this work with raw cow’s milk and 1 pint of medium heavy cream?
Do you have better results with salted or unsalted butter?
Dear Katie, This recipe looks wonderful, and upon your recommendation we just purchased the Cuisinart ICE-21 1.5 ice cream maker. I have been unable to determine whether the inner pot is made of aluminum. The comments on Amazon are not decisive, and none of the representatives at Cuisinart were able to answer my questions. Do you have any thoughts on the matter? With gratitude, Crystal
Where are the ingredients listed? I just don’t see it.
There’s a bug we’re trying to fix in some of the recipes which is why it’s not showing up right now. Will hopefully have it fixed very soon.
Raw milk is against the law in Canada. And, honestly, I was a kid when I tested raw milk (S Europe), and me being born in a city, I drank pasteurized milk since I was switched to cow milk. But, when I visited a friend in a rural area, they had a cow, and she brought me a glass with freshly “brewed” milk. I tried but I did not like it at all. So while living there we had raw milk, but my mum always boiled it before using it for me. I know that raw milk has different composition than the boiled one similar to raw honey vs pasteurized. I would do yogurt and cheese with raw milk, but just to drink a glass of milk, no thank you. And to do that, I need to take up farming and have my own cow. Easy, breezy.
Delicious recipe. However, I did not like the distinct flavor of egg, so I recommend using no more than 3 eggs for this serving size. Thank you for sharing!!
I’ve ordered some genuine Stevia leaves (dried which can be made into powder) because I’m on a sugar free diet. Have you ever used STEVIA in your ice cream? Or has it worked out for anyone else?
Thank you! 🙂
I just made this; it was perfect! My teen thought it was the best thing ever.
Thanks for this wonderful recipe and all you do!!
Hello everyone!
I am in agreement. This amazing ice cream. To prevent the butter from clumping did you try bringing all the ingredients to room temp?
Made this tonight, it was delicious! I used all maple syrup, no honey. However, like others have stated, the butter didn’t mix very well. It all seemed mixed after blending, but the butter re-hardened in small clumps during the ice cream making process.
Brrrr! It’s too cold to make ice cream right now (just before Christmas), but I will definitely be making this when it warms up next year — This is almost my favourite flavour. The only thing better would be to substitute praline for the plain pecans, that would be sensational! Thank you for this recipe!!
Thanks Katie, looking at buying this ice cream maker. It gets very good reviews and not that expensive. Will have to make some ice cream with stevia as hubby won’t eat it otherwise.
Did you try it with stevia?
Perfect timing! Was online searching two days ago for a low/no sugar ice cream recipe using coconut milk and fresh fruit. Suppose any fresh fruit would be amazing in this: nectarines, peaches, blueberries! Thanks, Katie!
Thank you. This blended well as long as I kept the canned coconut milk and the butter at room temperature before blending everything together. I used 2 tbs of vanilla and two whole eggs in mine along with 2 tbs ground flax-seed and 2 tbs melted coconut oil. I poured the mixture into my ice cream maker and 30 minutes in I added the pecans. Definitely will do again. This was definitely a little more than 4 servings and very rich.
Great !! Thanks for the link 🙂
Hi
Are the raw eggs optional ? I am allergic to eggs and wanted to check if there was a substitute for the eggs ?
Here’s a list of egg substitutes: https://wellnessmama.com/37022/egg-substitute-for-baking/
So which substitute do you use for making ice cream?
What is “the tin can method”?
Yes the link to the tin can method doesn’t work.
Hi in the process of making this, put everything in the blender (not the pecans) and my butter clumped up. Is it suppose to do that. I haven’t added it to my ice cream maker yet. Also the raw egg yolks is that safe, because they don’t seem to be getting cooked. Please let me know.
Sam
That is a ton of vanilla extract! I am thinking this is a misprint and you mean teaspoons?
Nope, not a misprint, but I love vanilla. you could definitely use less.