Last updated on December 14, 2023
Italy is home to espresso coffee and gelato. It's no surprise that coffee ice cream is one of the most popular ice cream flavors in our country. We are Italians and we share our coffee gelato recipe, made without eggs. Creamy, tasty and easy to make
We write on All Italian to share bits of our own culture, and ice cream is quite a representative part. After the homemade Italian ice cream recipe and our pages dedicated to brewing coffee with a percolator, it's time to write a page that combines Italian gelato and coffee.
On this page we show you how to make a healthy and light Italian coffee flavored ice cream. A tasty snack in the afternoon, and a refined dessert to offer to guests as a digestif after dinner.
The Italian words of this page:
| 🔊 Gelato Italiano | Italian ice cream |
| 🔊 Caffè | Coffee |
| 🔊 Gelato al caffè | Coffee ice cream |
Most ice cream recipes you find online contain eggs. Eggs give you slightly thicker ice cream, but they are not always necessary to make creamy ice cream at home.
Preparation with eggs takes a little longer and eggs also change the taste of the ice cream. Some flavors with egg are delicious: crema ice cream for example.
With other ice cream flavors, however, we only want the taste of milk and whipping cream, and no egg: such as in chocolate ice cream, yogurt ice cream, coconut gelato en pistachio ice cream and coffee ice cream that we prepare here.
Making coffee ice cream without eggs is simple and quick. There's just one little extra step: you have to brew the coffee and let it cool. In fact, it is important never to pour hot ingredients into the ice cream maker.
We make coffee ice cream with fresh whipping cream, whole milk, sugar and espresso coffee.
| Ingredient image | Ingredient name | Cups | Grams | Ounces |
|
Whole milk | 0.9 cups | 220 g | 7.76 oz |
|
Whipping cream | 0.75 cup | 180 g | 6.35 oz |
|
Sugar | 0.66 cup | 130 g | 4.58 oz |
|
Italian coffee | 0.4 cup | 90 g | 3.17 oz |
We use fresh whole milk 3,5% fat, whipping cream 35% fat (which you don't have to whip!) and white sugar.
The mixture of ingredients must be cold when you pour it in the ice cream maker.
3.17 oz / 90 grams of coffee is approximately two Italian coffee cups made with the coffee moka; it corresponds to three cups of espresso made with the coffee machine.
Of course, use the coffee you like, but make it thick. If it is as watered down as filter coffee, it may be more difficult to flavor the coffee ice cream.
For each ingredient we indicate both the volume in cups and the weight in ounces and grams.
In the US, most online ice cream recipes indicate the ingredients in cups: it's a very practical unit, in which each ingredient is already converted into volume, so you don't need a scale.
👉 To be more accurate, however, we prefer to weigh all the ingredients: both solids and liquids before pouring them into the ice cream mixture.
For this you need a kitchen scale, preferably a digital one, which usually expresses the weight in ounces (oz) and/or grams (g).
For this recipe we use a popular model compressor ice cream maker.
The preparation steps are the same for most ice cream makers on the market, including the models with freezer bowl.
👉 Read also our guide on how to use the ice cream maker.
Make first a rather dense coffee. We recommend a good espresso or a coffee made with a moka pot: Italian of course.
Let the coffee then cool 20 minutes to room temperature.
Has the coffee cooled down properly? If you're using a compressor ice maker, it is time to turn on the ice maker. Usually an ice cream maker takes 8-10 minutes for its bowl to be cold and ready to make ice cream: just the time it takes to mix the ingredients.
If you use an ice cream maker with a freezer bowl instead, you will have to wait until the last minute to remove the cooling element from the freezer.
While the ice cream maker cools down, it's a perfect time to mix the ingredients. The best way is to pour all ingredients into a bowl and mix with an immersion mixer. Alternatively, you can use a blender.
Add the liquids first and the sugar last. Mix on low speed to obtain a smooth and homogeneous mixture.
Is the ice machine bowl cold? It's time to pour the ice cream. Usually we wait until it is at least -7.6 °F (-22 °C) degrees before pouring the ice cream, but that depends on the ice cream maker.
👉 A tip: to pour the mixture, we use the opening on the lid of the ice cream maker. This way we don't have to open the lid and the cold does not escape. Also an important detail: we pour the ice cream while the mixing paddle is running. Ice cream does not always result without this precaution.
How long does the ice cream maker take to make ice? About half an hour, but that depends on the ingredients, the amount of ice and the ice cream maker.
Check the status of your ice cream through the transparent lid: when the mixture increases in volume, it means that it absorbs air and becomes ice cream. Usually the ice cream is ready when the mixing paddle automatically stops.
Your Italian coffee gelato is ready. Buon appetito! 🍨
In the restaurant in Italy, when you finish eating, the waiter will ask: 🔊 andava tutto bene? (was everything fine?)
At least two Italian desserts were born from the encounter between coffee and ice cream. In this page we talk about coffee ice cream, which is ice cream made with coffee.
The other dessert is 🔊 affogato al caffè, the Italian ice coffee: that is a scoop of ice cream in a cup of coffee.
How do you make coffee ice cream even tastier? Of course you can decorate the ice cream with coffee beans. But one version we really like is coffee ice cream with pieces of chocolate: like stracciatella but with coffee ice cream instead of fiordilatte.
We grate some chocolate flakes and pour them into the ice cream when it starts to firm up. We recommend using dark chocolate.
See also the recipe for stracciatella ice cream.
A creamy but low-calorie coffee ice cream, how do you do that?
For a light coffee ice cream you can use coconut milk instead of whipping cream. Coconut milk has a distinct taste, so we advise you not to use too much of it. If you are experimenting with vegan ice cream, try also e small piece of banana: it makes the ice cream creamy and goes well for a vegan version of coffee ice cream.
Making your own gelato is quick and easy if you have an ice cream maker. It can take less than an hour, from mixing ingredients to eating ice cream.
However, many do the first experiments with ice cream at home without an ice cream maker. We have also tried it.
👉 We recommend using the same ingredients of the ice cream recipes for the ice cream maker. With or without an ice cream maker, the ingredients do not change.
What does change is the way the ingredients are processed to make the ice cream. Without ice cream maker, you need to mix the ingredients first. After that you have two choices:
Freeze the mixture in the freezer for a few hours and then blend in the food processor
or take the ice cream out of the freezer every 30 minutes to mix it so it doesn't solidify completely. You have to repeat this for 4 hours.
Of course, the second method is not very practical. Alternatively, you can simply pour the mixture into the ice molds and get a creamy-ish ice cream stick with the flavor of your choice.
We regularly update these pages on Italian gelato with recipes we make at home with the ice cream maker.
