Stay Connected

Tuesday, March 1, 2022

Making Funfetti Cake Batter Ice Cream


Funfetti Cake Batter-flavored ice cream

My daughter planned to curbside-pick up whipping cream and strawberries for both our household and my son and daughter-in-law (2 packages strawberries and 2 containers whipping cream) just before Valentine's Day from Target. When she got the notification that they were out of stock of the strawberries, I told her to skip the whipping cream, too. Well, somehow, Target didn't get that last message in time. They included the whipping cream with my daughter's other personal purchases and charged her for it. She didn't realize this until she came home and unpacked her purchases. So, we were stuck with this whipping cream. I paid her for it and then was thinking, thinking, thinking how I could use it all before it spoiled. 

sprinkles from Target online, shipped to our address,
 less expensive than in store at Walmart or Fred Meyer

Enter the idea for ice cream for both daughters' birthday later this month. Ice cream is a great way to "save" extra heavy cream. The freezer essentially preserves the whipping cream, and the ice cream can be eaten any time in the coming months. Both daughters love cake batter ice cream as well as funfetti anything. I added a canister of rainbow sprinkles to my recent Target order (great price, btw, $2.99 for 9.3 oz) and made plans to do the ice cream this week.

Many recipes for cake batter ice cream call for cake mix. That's fine if you have cake mix on hand. I don't, so I searched around for ideas. I had a hunch that a mix of both almond and vanilla extract would be part of the recipe. As I was searching, I came across a reddit thread with a poster suggesting a mix of almond, vanilla, and butter extract. Guess what? I have all three of these. (The proportions suggested were 1/2 teaspoon almond extract, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon butter flavoring, and 1/2 cup of rainbow sprinkles stirred in to a standard ice cream base of 2 cups whipping cream, 1 cup whole milk, plus unspecified sugar.)

So, I made the ice cream, using the following measurements:

  • 1 pint heavy whipping cream
  • 1 cup 2% milk (I didn't have whole milk)
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
  • 1 teaspoon butter flavoring (Wilton)
  • 1/2 cup rainbow jimmies

our ice cream maker has been one of our favorite wedding gifts
 from all those years ago

In a large mixing bowl with a spout, I stirred together the cream, milk, sugar, and flavorings (not the sprinkles just yet). I poured the mixture into my pre-chilled ice cream maker. I churned slowly for about 25 minutes. When the ice cream reached soft-serve firm, I churned the sprinkles into the mix. I had tested a sprinkle in a small amount of milk to see if it would bleed into liquid and it did. As a result, I decided to add the colored jimmies once the ice cream was no longer liquid. After churning the sprinkles in, I scooped the finished ice cream into a large plastic container with a lid and smoothed the top (so I can lay a sheet of plastic wrap over the top once it's frozen hard). The ice cream is now hardening in my deep freeze.

I will put a sheet of plastic wrap resting on
top of the ice cream after it's frozen.
This will help prevent ice crystals from forming.

What I thought
I need to preface, I have never chosen cake batter ice cream for myself before. This is a flavor my daughters often choose. I'm more a coffee or chocolate flavor gal when it comes to ice cream. Does it taste like commercial cake batter ice cream? My daughters will have to be the judge on that. And I won't know what my daughters think about this homemade Funfetti Cake Batter ice cream until their birthday later this month. However, if I were to make this again, I would increase the sugar by about 2 tablespoons and increase the almond extract to about 3/4 teaspoon. Otherwise, I thought this was pretty good. I wasn't sure about the butter flavoring, so I only added 1/2 teaspoon at first. After adding this amount and tasting, I added the other 1/2 teaspoon. Because taste can be such a personal thing, I would recommend adding the flavorings in parts and increasing to the suggested amount based on one's own taste.

I wash and reuse the plastic containers that
shortening (Crisco) comes in -- perfect size
for a batch of homemade ice cream.

I still have another pint of whipping cream to use this week. As soon as I can get the chilling chamber re-frozen, I'll be making a chocolate fudge brownie ice cream for my husband's birthday in April.

This is one of those times that my kids and husband are very glad that I waste not, so they can want not.

If you were to find yourself in a situation such as mine -- an extra pint of heavy cream about to expire -- how would you use it?

6 comments:

  1. I must lead a sheltered life because I've never heard of cake batter ice cream. But I love cake mix and batter before it's baked, so I think I would like the ice cream, too. And, of course, you can never go wrong with chocolate. If it were me, it would be hard to wait for the birthdays to eat the ice cream knowing it was in the freezer.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Live and Learn,
      I've seen cake batter ice cream (also sometimes called "birthday cake" ice cream) at places like Baskin and Robbins or at fro-yo places like Menchie's. I think it's been a kid-favorite for about the last 10 years. But I agree, chocolate is always good. I've buried the first ice cream in the deep freezer, so I think it'll be "safe".
      Have a great day, Live and Learn!

      Delete
  2. What a perfect solution for your "problem"!. I didn't know that butter flavor extract existed. Learned something new from you today!

    I generally use heavy cream in biscuits or scones. That was a pandemic discovery for me. Cutting butter into flour for baked goods is not my favorite thing to do so when I learned about using cream instead, I was on board with it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Kris,
      So, if you have heavy cream on hand, you skip the shortening/butter step and mix the cream directly into the flour and other dry ingredients? Wow, I'd never heard of that before, but it sounds like a great short-cut. I agree, cutting the butter into the flour is a pain, especially if you're only baking a few biscuits or scones -- all that work for just a little product.

      I first read about butter extract in recipes for homemade pancake syrup. It does add to the resulting flavor, but doesn't necessarily make it taste more like real maple, just a different type of syrup.

      Thanks for sharing about using cream in biscuits!

      Delete
    2. Cream biscuits--8-9 biscuits
      2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus extra for the counter
      2 teaspoons granulated sugar
      2 teaspoons baking powder
      ½ teaspoon table salt
      1 ½ cups heavy cream

      Oven 450*. Adjust an oven rack to the upper middle position. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk together dry ingredients and slowly add cream until the dough forms. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter. Knead briefly. Cut into biscuits and bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes. ***Instead of cutting out biscuits, I have been patting the dough into a square or rectangle and cutting them into squares. Saves me a little time and we don't mind square biscuits.

      After I tried these a few times, I wondered about scones. I have always had a hard time getting scones to turn out to be tasty. I found this recipe, which is similar to the biscuits, and it's a winner! https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/cream-tea-scones-recipe

      Delete
    3. Thank you, thank you, Kris, for the recipe. I'll try this next time I have heavy cream. The scone recipe also look very good. Thanks for taking the time to come back to this post and provide the recipe and link.

      Delete

Thank you for joining the discussion today. Here at creative savv, we strive to maintain a respectful community centered around frugal living. Creative savv would like to continue to be a welcoming and safe place for discussion, and as such reserves the right to remove comments that are inappropriate for the conversation.

FOLLOW CREATIVE SAVV ON BLOGLOVIN'

Follow
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Be a voice that helps someone else on their frugal living journey

Are you interested in writing for creative savv?
What's your frugal story?

Do you have a favorite frugal recipe, special insight, DIY project, or tips that could make frugal living more do-able for someone else?

Creative savv is seeking new voices.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

share this post