

I remember making Pumpkin Ice Cream for a pumpkin dessert buffet many years ago. Back in the day we hosted serious pumpkin carving parties and I love a good theme so it was pumpkin recipes. I haven’t made this pumpkin ice cream for years but this year I just had to do it.
When we decided my sister was cooking Thanksgiving turkey I volunteered to make dessert. Right up front I said I wasn’t making pumpkin pie but I’d make something good. If I’m making dessert I pick a tart over a pie every time so I ended up making a Bourbon Caramel Pumpkin Tart and then I added this pumpkin ice cream just for fun. I guess I deleted the photo with the ice cream but this is what my dessert looked like.
I’m not a devoted pumpkin fan but October seems like the perfect reason to make as many pumpkin recipes as possible. So that’s what I’m doing and the month isn’t over yet.
Starbucks turned pumpkin spice into an actual season and you can hear more about that on my recent podcast interview with Sue Jennett (link below). For more recipes check out my Pumpkin Recipe Round Up.
I’ve been getting a lot of requests to post the pumpkin tart recipe after I shared pics of my dessert from the dining room table. It will be next but this is a perfect example of the planning steps required for some fancy desserts. No one step is hard but I can’t publish one recipe post that includes five recipes; the tart pastry, the bourbon caramel sauce, the candied sweet and salty pumpkin seeds, the filling and this pumpkin ice cream. Just like you probably don’t want to make all of those recipes at the same time.
The Bourbon-Caramel sauce is part of the tart recipe and it’s divine over the pumpkin ice cream. Luckily there was extra sauce from the tart recipe and I could make more Candied Pumpkin Seeds in minutes. Together this was a perfect contrast and we enjoyed ice cream with caramel sauce a few times after the pumpkin tart was gone.
You can buy a lot of fancy ice cream and there’s plenty of it that’s gluten free. Sometimes we make things from scratch because we can and it’s fun for me to see young people learn this. No one wants to cook all day every day and it’s always fun to buy a treat but if you have ice cream lovers in your family you need an ice cream maker.
Watching the magic is good fun and there’s always someone who wants to do it. I like to assign the freezing of the ice cream to any guest who comes into the kitchen. Then it goes into the freezer to harden while we eat yet it’s still freshly churned and soft when it’s time to serve it.
At home I have a Donvier ice cream maker and have raved about it in all my ice cream recipe posts. I’ve had it for decades and since it has no moving parts I don’t think it could ever die. At our family cabin we were recently gifted an electric ice cream maker and I have to admit, it was even easier. I just plugged it in and watched it churn for twenty minutes.
An ice cream maker is a great gift for Christmas, birthdays or anyone new to gluten free who’s trying to create new traditions around food.
Let me know in the comments below if you made homemade ice cream and don’t forget the Candied Sweet and Salty Pumpkin Seeds.
PUMPKIN ICE CREAM |
2 eggs |
¾ cup white sugar |
¼ cup brown sugar |
2 cups canned pumpkin |
2 cups whipping cream |
½ cup milk (2%, homo or half and half) |
½ tsp vanilla |
½ tsp cinnamon |
½ tsp cloves |
½ tsp ginger |
¼ tsp salt |
Ingredients |
Directions |
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