Hey Y’all! I was in the grocery store last week, as one does, and I made the mistake of walking past the produce section. Silly me. On display: a row of beautiful eastern North Carolina peaches. At that moment, as the produce section spotlights cast an angelic haze over that row of peaches, I realized it’s stone fruit season! The rest of the details of that shopping trip are hazy, but I do know that I walked out of that store with 4 lbs of peaches and 2 lbs of sweet cherries. And if you’re curious, I went into the store for milk. Lol.

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Why Make Homemade Peach Ice Cream?
Ingredients to make peach ice cream
Kitchen Equipment:
How to Make Peach Ice Cream
Tips and Tricks:
Want more ice cream recipes?
Recipe

This recipe for peach ice cream makes about 1.5 quarts; involves a generous splash of bourbon and requires an ice cream maker and a fine mesh strainer.

Why Make Homemade Peach Ice Cream?

Peach Ice Cream is the most quintessential summer dessert. After I graduated from college, I worked in a public affairs office at Clemson and this was where I learned that the admin team is the most important team of any office. These women handled those executives and kept the morale high. How? In the summer, one of them would show up at the office with the ice cream churn and a ton of rock salt. Another one would have picked up a peck of peaches from their neighbor’s orchard. During lunch, they would sit in the conference room and put that ice cream together. Anyone visiting that office from the hours of 12-2, [and I literally mean anyone] they would be offered a cup of peach ice cream along with a healthy dose of southern hospitality. Unless you’re vegan or have food allergies– this was not an event to be missed.

Anyway, when I got home with my bounty, I immediately knew that I needed to turn these fresh peaches into homemade peach ice cream.

Scoops of ice cream in the container, with an ice scoop.

Ingredients to make peach ice cream

Fresh Peaches (obviously)
Lemon Juice
Sugar
Heavy Cream
Whole Milk
Egg yolks
Vanilla extract
Bourbon (optional)
Lots of Ice

Kitchen Equipment:

Ice Cream Maker. I have the Cuisinart 2 Qt Ice Cream Maker. It’s very simple to use, as long as you remember the first rule of ice cream making: Put the ice cream bowl in the freezer 24 hours before you’re ready to use it. If you have the space, keep it in the freezer all of the time.
Airtight container for finished ice cream. You will also need an airtight container for the finished ice cream. Most of the time I use a tupperware container, but you can buy containers specifically for ice cream. My favorite is this Tovolo container.
Fine Mesh Strainer, like this one, is the most important tool in your arsenal for making ice cream. After the eggs are tempered (see more about that below), the custard is cooked over medium heat until the custard thickens. If the custard heats too much or isn’t stirred enough, you can end up with some chunky custard solids. The mesh strainer helps eliminate the solids keeping the peach ice cream nice and smooth.
Vegetable Peeler
Measuring Cups
Sharp Knife/ Cutting board
Spatula
A medium bowl with a lid and a larger bowl than the medium bowl.

How to Make Peach Ice Cream

Peel, core and dice the peaches. Half of the peaches will steep with the cream and the rest will get churned into the ice cream.
Season the peaches. Mix together the diced peaches, lemon juice, 2 tablespoons of sugar and a splash of bourbon. Let that marinate.
Steep the rough chopped peaches. You’ll infuse the peach flavor into the cream by bringing the cream to a boil with the fresh peaches.
Temper the egg yolks. This is the process of slowly adding warm cream to an egg mixture to prevent them from turning into scrambled eggs. Read below for more on that.
Finish making the custard and Chill. Once the custard is ready, you’ll set the bowl in an ice bath to quickly lower the temperature. The custard needs to chill for at least 3 hours yall.
Churn. Follow the instructions on your ice cream maker to churn the custard base. When there is about 10 minutes left of the churn, pour in the diced peaches.
Freeze. Scoop the ice cream out of the ice cream churn into a freezer safe container and freeze for a couple hours.

Tips and Tricks:

Easier way to peel the peaches?

The easiest and quickest way to peel the peaches is with a vegetable peeler! I saw this tip on tik tok and immediately tried it. Y’all it works. Now you can skip the whole process of scoring and blanching the peaches. You’re welcome.

How to Temper Eggs

Because we are making a custard based ice cream we need to carefully temper the eggs in the warmed up heavy cream to make sure that the egg yolks don’t turn into scrambled eggs. That’s complete buzzkill. How do you temper eggs? It’s really simple. Whisk the egg yolks, sugar and cold heavy cream together in a large measuring cup. Then slowly pour a stream of the warmed (but not too hot) cream into the egg mixture. Stir every 10-1 5 seconds. Think about it this way, we have to slowly raise the temperature of the eggs and we need to do that gently.

Ice Ice Baby

Make sure your ice maker is full before you start making the custard. After you make the custard you’ll need to quickly bring the temperature of the custard back down. We do that by filling a larger bowl with ice water and carefully setting the bowl of custard in the ice bath.

Want more ice cream recipes?

Recipe

Homemade Fresh Peach Ice Cream

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Author: Richelle
Total Time: 3 hours 40 minutes
Yield: 1 ½ quarts 1x

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Description

A classic southern summer peach ice cream recipe.

Instructions

Peel and core the peaches. Divide the peaches in half. Roughly chop one half of the peaches and set aside. Dice the remaining peaches in small even pieces, because these will go in the custard base.
Season the peaches. In a small bowl with a lid mix together the diced peaches, lemon juice, 2 tablespoons of sugar and a splash of bourbon. Cover the peaches with the lid and refrigerate.
Steep the rough chopped peaches. In a medium pot, combine 1 cup of heavy cream, 1 cup of whole milk and the roughly chopped peaches. Let this mixture come to a simmer (but not a boil!) over medium low heat. About 5-8 minutes. Stir occasionally. Once the milk reaches the simmer stage, strain out peaches with a fine mesh strainer. Press the peaches firmly into the strainer with the back of the wooden spoon. Discard those peaches. Pour the milk/cream back into the pot.
Temper the egg yolks. In a large measuring cup, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar and remaining cold milk and heavy cream (1 cup total). In a slow stream, pour 1 cup of the warmed milk/cream mixture into the measuring cup with the egg mixture. Whisk the egg mixture every 10-15 seconds to make sure the eggs don’t scramble.
Finish making the custard. Pour the egg mixture into the pot and return the heat to medium low. Let the mixture come to a simmer, but not a boil. The mixture will thicken and will coat the back of a wooden spoon when it’s done. About 5-8 minutes. Strain the custard with the fine mesh strainer into a clean bowl that has a lid. Whisk in the vanilla extract now.
Chill the Custard. Fill a bowl larger than the bowl holding the custard with ice and water to about halfway full. Place the custard bowl in the ice bath. Whisk occasionally to help the custard cool. Once chilled place a piece of plastic wrap directly onto the custard. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for at least 3 hours or overnight.
Churn. Follow the instructions on your ice cream maker to churn the custard base. When there is about 10 minutes left of the churn, pour in the diced peaches.

Freeze. Scoop the ice cream out of the ice cream churn into a freezer safe container and freeze for a couple hours.

Prep Time: 30 minutes
Chill Time: 3 hours
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Category: Ice Cream