Vanilla Fudge Swirl Ice Cream Recipe
Last year I came across a super delicious 3-ingredient ice cream recipe that required no ice cream maker. If you didn’t read the original post, it was quickly declared the boyfriends favorite ice cream ever – store-bought or homemade. While he has a boring ice cream personality and is quite content to eat plain vanilla ice cream all the time, I like various ice cream flavors now and then. Last month it was the boyfriend’s birthday and he requested a marble cake with ice cream.
So, I pondered an ice cream that would go well with marble cake and immediately thought of a vanilla fudge swirl ice cream. The perfect match in the cake and ice cream realm, right? Since I already knew I wanted to use the delicious vanilla ice cream from last time as the base, I just needed to come up with a delish hot fudge sauce recipe and decide how to incorporate it. While you could totally use pre-made hot fudge sauce in this recipe, I wanted to make mine from scratch to be special for a birthday. I’ve already posted the hot fudge sauce recipe – just follow the link to get it. It’s so good I may or my not have eaten several spoonfuls of it while waiting for the ice cream to freeze up. 
The resulting ice cream is just as good as the original. The vanilla ice cream is creamy and smooth and the hot fudge has a chocolate flavor that is just rich enough without being too sweet that accents the vanilla perfectly. The vanilla fudge swirl ice cream is great on its own, to make a sundae with, on brownies, and of course, cake. It’s also great for Valentine’s Day desserts since it’s full of yummy chocolate flavor.
This vanilla fudge swirl ice cream recipe is great for a step up from the traditional vanilla ice cream without being too sweet. The best part is that you don't even need an ice cream maker.
Ingredients
2 cups heavy (whipping) cream, cold
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup hot fudge sauce (I used this recipe, but you can also use pre-made)
Instructions
- Place cream and vanilla into large bowl or bowl of stand mixer and whisk or mix until stiff peaks form. Using a cold bowl/whisk/cream will help your cream whip faster.
- Once you have whipped cream, pour the sweetened condensed milk over the top and gently fold it into whipped cream.
- Pour mixture into a 2-quart freezer-safe container and cover. For this flavor I like to use a wide container versus a deep container to make swirling in the hot fudge easier later on.
- Freeze for at least 2-3 hours. The goal is to have partially frozen ice cream so that you can swirl in the fudge without making chocolate ice cream, yet not have the ice cream be so hard that it is impossible to swirl in.
- Once partially frozen, remove from freezer and pour thick long ribbons of fudge over the ice cream, about 1/2 inch apart.
- Using a knife or chopstick, swirl the hot fudge into the ice cream in figure 8 motions. You don't want to stir it in or you won't really have swirls. Make sure to take the knife or chopstick all the way to the bottom of the container. See pictures below for reference.
- Replace cover and freeze for an additional 3+ hours or until fully frozen.
- Once frozen, scoop and enjoy. Note that this ice cream should not get rock hard unless your freezer is very cold, and thus shouldn't need to sit at room temperature long, if at all, to scoop. Leftovers may be kept in the covered container and frozen.
Notes
Want to make double chocolate fudge swirl ice cream? Just stir in an additional 1/2 cup of hot fudge into the sweetened condensed milk thoroughly before folding it into the whipped cream.
This is what the ice cream looked like before and after I swirled the fudge in:
About Money Savvy Michelle
We make this at my house often! So easy to make and very yummy!
Yes it is! Thanks for stopping by.
Yay! Thanks Michelle! Looks so yummy and easy! <3
Thanks Terri! I’m amazed every time I try this ice cream at just how delicious and easy it is.