This Snickerdoodle Ice Cream starts with a smooth, cinnamon-spiced custard base and is packed with soft cookie chunks for the perfect mix of creamy and chewy. The rich base is perfectly spiced, and those buttery snickerdoodle bites bring texture and nostalgia to every scoop. It’s easy to make, full of flavor, and always a hit! For the mix-ins, you can use my long-time reader favorite sugar cookie recipe, or buy some high quality shortbread cookies from the store.
Ingredients & Equipment Needed
- 2% milk
- sugar
- egg yolks
- heavy cream
- vanilla
- cinnamon
- high-quality sugar cookies, snickerdoodles, or shortbread cookies – you can make this sugar cookie recipe, store-bought shortbread cookies, or even snickerdoodles! However, true snickerdoodles may be too soft to churn in well to this ice cream and may leave a metallic aftertaste due to the cream of tartar, which is why we recommend using sugar cookies and adding the classic snickerdoodle spice flavor through the creamy custard base instead. If you decide to use our homemade sugar cookie recipe, we recommend rolling them a little thick and leaving them on the soft side, so they’ll freeze up nicely and won’t be too hard within the ice cream.
- ice cream maker
How to Make Snickerdoodle Ice Cream
This is a simple overview of the recipe, you’ll find a full printable recipe below!
- Heat milk and sugar in a saucepan until bubbles form; remove from heat.
- Whisk egg yolks in a bowl, slowly add half the hot milk while whisking constantly.
- Return all to saucepan and cook gently, whisking, until thickened and 160°F.
- Stir in cream, cinnamon, and vanilla. Chill mixture in the fridge for several hours.
- Pour chilled custard into ice cream maker and churn.
- When nearly done, add chopped cookies.
- Transfer to a container and freeze until firm.
Storage & Other Tips
- Chill the base thoroughly before churning. Make sure your custard is fully cooled before churning. A well-chilled base helps the ice cream freeze faster and stay smoother.
- Use airtight, freezer-safe containers. Transfer your ice cream into containers designed for the freezer. Better yet, press a piece of plastic wrap directly onto the surface before sealing the lid to prevent ice crystals, and maintain creaminess.
- Store in the coldest part of your freezer. Keep your ice cream away from the door, ideally in the back. This is where temperatures are the most stable, so they can avoid fluctuations that cause the icy texture.
- Enjoy within 2 – 4 weeks to maintain peak quality. Homemade ice cream lacks preservatives, so its texture and flavor start to weaken after a few weeks even when stored well.
Frequently Asked Questions
Use an airtight, shallow freezer-safe container and press plastic wrap directly onto the surface before sealing the lid. This minimizes air exposure and keeps your ice cream creamy.
This is a result of a base that’s not chilled quite enough. The base needs to be chilled thoroughly before churning, so it freezes smoothly. It’s also important to stop churning just before it’s fully firm and let it finish setting in the freezer to avoid an overly dense texture.
Add the chopped cookies in the final minutes of churning, or gently fold them in just before transferring to the freezer. This prevents chunks from clumping or sinking.
Set the ice cream out for about 3 – 5 minutes before scooping to soften it slightly.
For best flavor and texture, enjoy it within 2 – 4 weeks. Store in the coldest part of your freezer, not the door, so it maintains a rich texture and prevents freezer burn.
Snickerdoodle Ice Cream
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cup milk 2%
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 ½ – 2 cups high-quality sugar cookies, chopped you can make your own, use snickerdoodles (just be aware they may be too soft to churn in well), or shortbread cookies
Instructions
- Combine milk and sugar in a medium saucepan. Heat over medium until bubbles form around the edges. Remove from heat.
- In a small mixing bowl (or really big cereal bowl), whisk egg yolks thoroughly. Very slowly, add ½ of the hot milk mixture, whisking the yolks constantly. Return pan with remaining milk mixture to stove top and then whisk the egg and milk mixture back into the saucepan, whisking constantly. You need to be careful here to not get the eggs too hot too fast, or else they’ll curdle. So just relax and take it slow.
- Add whipping cream. Over medium-low heat and stirring constantly, continue heating the custard mixture to 160℉. It will start to thicken quickly; remove from heat when your finger leaves a track on a spoon coated in the custard mixture.
- Whisk in cinnamon and vanilla.
- Place the custard in an airtight container and chill in the refrigerator several hours.
- When ready to make ice cream, pour chilled mixture into ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions. When the ice cream is almost done (like maybe the machine’s struggling a little…it looks like really firm soft-serve…), add chopped cookies.
- Remove from ice cream freezer and place in another air-tight container and freeze a couple of hours at least to firm up.
Questions & Reviews
This would be great on Chocolate chip cookie pie!
how much does this make? looks amazing!
This ice cream sounds fantastic! I love snickerdoodles. Im kind of hesitant on the cookies though. Wouldnt they get soggy sitting in the ice cream?
I have a good 'no egg'cookie dough recipe for ice cream that I might include instead
We made this for our Memorial Day BBQ and it was absolutely fabulous! Definitely a hit and a keeper! Thanks!
Kate, I bet you guys would like this…..You can make your own vanilla very inexpensively. (Much, much, much cheaper than buying those teensy little bottles at a grocery.)
All it takes is some cheap vodka, a handful of Madagascar Bourbon vanilla beans (dirt cheap on EBay), a mason jar, a dark cabinet, and about a month or so of time in the dark cabinet.
As much as you guys must use for your test cooking, it would be worth your while.
You can make your own lemon, orange, grapefruit and coconut extracts very easily using the same methods.
I even made some little bottles of key lime extract for gifts, which isn't something you see every day.
(I don't recommend doing that though, peeling the limes just about crippled me.)
Anyway, the cost of the pure homemade extracts is about one eighth the cost of the store bought, and that's just the first time, since you'll want to buy some amber or cobalt bottles to store the extracts in your fridge. After that, refills are roughly the price of the cheap vodka that you use to make them, and the peel scrapings of whatever citrus fruit you just ate. They make fabulous gifts if you slap a pretty label on them.
Just Google "make your own vanilla extract" for instructions.
Love the blog! Several of your recipes have become real favorites.
I just made the ginger snaps with added orange rind and dipped them in white chocolate, I was thinking how wonderful that would be to incorporate into ice cream! Cut up the cookies and put in white choco chips? Worth a shot! Love your site and recommend it to everyone I know, all the time! Thanks!!
I love what you wrote in response to the vanilla/foodie comment. I agree with you wholeheartedly. I use the imitation version as well and don’t taste a big enough difference b/w the expensive and cheap kind to warrant paying more.
I WILL be trying out this recipe. I actually love snickerdoodles.
Manda, I’m so glad you tried it and loved it! I figured this would probably be one of “those” recipes that hardly anyone makes because they either don’t have an ice cream maker or they don’t want to haul it out.
I’m seriously going to use this as my new ice cream base, just sans the cinnamon. I bet it would be awesome as plain ol’ French vanilla or with strawberris in it.
This was sooooooooo good, but next time I’m going to leave out the cookies and just have the cinnamon ice cream. I am in love with it.
Well, considering real vanilla is hard to come by in my neck of the sticks, I have to settle for imitation unless I’m willing to sell my first-born child. Which, believe me, is an option sometimes, but usually more frowned upon than using imitation vanilla. Besides, we generally try to avoid the “foodie” label and the snobbery that comes along with that. Yeah, we’re not big on casseroles, but we’re not so far detached from the real world that we don’t use imitation vanilla in a pinch. I’m a small-town girl livin’ in a lonely world, what am I gonna do? 🙂