If you are after a frozen custard soft serve without xanthan gum, look no further! This incredibly delicious Ninja Swirl custard soft serve is my latest Ninja Creami recipe. It uses eggs, milk and cream, sugar and glucose syrup or light corn syrup. Finish it off with some good vanilla and fine salt for restaurant quality ice cream at home.
Notes on the cream
This recipe uses full fat milk and full fat thickened cream. Thickened cream is the Australian name for a cream that is 30-35% fat and used for whipping. Unlike other countries, our thickened cream is a slightly lower fat percentage and uses xanthan gum or guar gum to aid in the thickening.
Whipping cream outside of Australia is generally a slightly higher fat percentage so that it can whip on its own. For whatever reason, Australian manufacturers decidedly to add less milk fat and compensate with xanthan gum.
The closest equivalent in the USA is heavy cream or heavy whipping cream. In the UK, it is called whipping cream. The most important thing is to determine that the fat percentage is 30-36% or as close to that number as possible. Too much fat can ruin an ice cream, so we want to stay as close to that number as possible.
In this recipe, a few extra percentages of fat shouldn’t make a difference. In high fat recipes, though (like my upcoming pistachio Ninja Swirl) it might mean the difference between a great and terrible scoop.
Egg yolks or whole eggs?
This recipe is very similar to my Ninja Creami custard ice cream recipe (although retested for the Ninja Swirl). In that recipe, people are often surprised to learn that I use whole eggs rather than just the yolks.
Why? The waste. When developing the recipe, I decided to try it with whole eggs instead of just relegating the whites to my freezer, never to be used. As it turns out it works beautifully and (in my opinion) you really don’t taste them.
If you would prefer, I am certain you could just use the eggs. The mixture might take a bit longer to thicken and it may come up a little under the fill line, accounting for the lost volume without the egg whites.
Tips for your Ninja Swirl custard soft serve (or ice cream)
Because we are making a custard, it is generally custom to ensure the eggs in the curdle don’t curdle and become grainy. However, this happened to me recently when testing a batch and I am pleased to announce that the machine blended any graininess into oblivion. So, don’t throw out a batch just because it is a little bit overcooked!
Of course, this isn’t a license to make chunky scrambled eggs and hope for the best. I still recommend following the recipe as written and trying not to over-cook your custard. Still, it is a viable rescue method. More broadly, it might be a great way to rescue any over-cooked custard you have (provided it isn’t too high in sugar).
On the note of sugar: there is only so much sugar you can add to an ice cream before it fails to set. This means that if you go rogue and add way more sugar than the recipe specifies, you might end up with cold but liquid custard as opposed to frozen custard.
I recommend processing all cream-based Ninja Swirl recipes on the SCOOP function even if you intend to make soft serve. The SOFT SERVE function with the ice cream setting processes the mixture for 6 minutes which is way too long. It starts to churn the cream into butter which coats the roof of your mouth in a really unpleasant way.
Can I use store bought custard?
This might not be as a common in some countries, but in Australia store bought prepared custard is extremely common. By custard I mean ‘drizzle over an apple pie’ sort of custard, not frozen custard like Americans might be used to.
I tested this theory with a 600g container of Paul’s custard which contains 2.5g fat and 13.3g sugar per 100ml at the time of writing. It worked nicely but it was a little bit ‘light’ tasting. My suggestion would be to process it on CreamiFit OR to use 50g less custard and add in 50g thickened cream.
With all that said, it still made for a pleasant ice cream in a pinch!
More Ninja Swirl recipes
- Ninja Swirl chocolate soft serve
- Ninja Swirl strawberry soft serve
- Ninja Swirl vanilla soft serve
- Ninja Swirl Dole whip
- Ninja Swirl coffee soft serve
Ninja Swirl custard soft serve
Equipment
- Ninja Swirl machine with 470ml size tub
Ingredients
- 3 extra large eggs 150g total weighed out of shell (yes, whole eggs, but see notes for options)
- 75 g caster/superfine sugar see notes
- 75 g thickened cream 30-35% fat content heavy/whipping in US/UK
- 275 g full fat milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or extract
- Small pinch fine salt
Instructions
- Weigh the eggs into a heat-proof mixing bowl and add the sugar and cream. Whisk thoroughly to combine, then place the bowl on a tea towel for grip.
- Place the milk, vanilla and salt in a medium saucepan over a medium heat. Allow the milk to heat up, stirring regularly until it is hot and just below a simmer.
- Take the milk off the heat and set the pot aside (we are using it again in a minute). Pour the hot milk into a jug with a pouring lip to make it easier.
- Take your whisk in one hand and the jug of hot milk in the other. Very slowly pour the hot milk into the egg mixture, whisking as you go. This will slowly bring the eggs up to temperature so they are less likely to scramble.
- Once you have poured all of the milk into the eggs, pour all of the mixture back into the saucepan. Place it over a low/medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly (I like to use a silicon spatula for this so I can keep the bottom from over-cooking) for 5 minutes.
- The mixture should feel a little different as you stir – slightly thicker but not fully thickened. If you have a thermometer, you want the mixture to reach 70C/158F to be food safe. Worry more about the consistency though as the mixture reaches this temperature easily within 5 minutes. If the mixture has reached 70C but hasn't changed texture, this is fine too.
- If the egg mixture starts to develop clumps, immediately take it off the heat and whisk very quickly. Transfer it from the pot it was in straight away to remove the residual heat. I find that lumps are processed out once the ice cream is ‘churned’, so don’t throw away a slightly lumpy mixture.
- Allow it to cool a little before transferring to the 470ml Ninja Swirl and into the freezer. Freeze for 24 hours with the lid off. Freezing with the lid off helps ensure the mixture doesn't form a hump during freezing which can damage the machine.
- When ready to consume, spin the ice cream using the SCOOP and ICE CREAM function. I recommend the scoop function for all cream based ice creams as the SWIRL function processes them for too long and churns the cream into butter.
- If you want to make soft serve, allow the ice cream to soften for 5-10 minutes if necessary. Swap the lids and place the piping nozzle on before using the handle to pipe. Note that the machine can’t process the bottom bit of mixture and it tends to go a bit icy.
- Return any leftovers to the freezer with the lid on.
Notes
- I developed this recipe to use whole eggs because I can’t stand having endless egg whites in my freezer. You can make the recipe without the egg whites, but you really can’t taste them so it’s a great no-waste option. I suspect they also help create a pipeable ice cream mixture without xanthan gum.
- The colour and flavour intensity depends on your eggs. Bland, pale egg yolks will result in a neutrally flavoured and pale ice cream.
- I haven’t tested any sugar alternatives in this recipe and I can’t offer advice at the moment.
- For a lactose free and low FODMAP ice cream, use lactose free cream and milk.
- For an egg free Ninja Swirl vanilla ice cream, see my recipe here.
- In my experience, the cooked egg custard starting to clump a little doesn’t affect the end product. Absolutely take it straight off the heat and decant it, but don’t worry too much about the texture as the blending tends to correct it. That doesn’t give you license to wander off and drastically over-cook the mixture, though 🙂
- If your mixture is constantly developing a hump as it freezes, try chilling it in the fridge before freezing it. Just make sure you don’t forget to transfer it to the freezer!
- If your mixture is too soft, lower the sugar to 50g. Sugar lowers the freezing point of a mixture which prevents it from freezing hard enough for the right ice cream texture. Milk and cream also contain (natural) sugar, so it may be that your milk and cream contain more natural sugars than the versions I tested. It also depends on the climate, the temperature of your freezer, etc.
- A slightly soft ice cream is easily rectified with 15-20 minutes in the freezer after spinning. This is why I generally recommend spinning your ice cream a little ahead of time.
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