Coffee Ice Cream Recipe (with no refined sugars)

Last Updated on November 9, 2025 by Michelle

What if I’m not addicted to coffee but it’s the other way around? Seriously. Coffee can’t get enough of me. It even made its way into my favorite decadent-but-good-for-you dessert. Yep, today I’m telling you how to make Coffee Ice Cream that will be your new obsession.

Yes, You Can Make Coffee Ice Cream

And maybe this ice cream will be obsessed with YOU. Either way, you need this. 

It’s crazy the hold my growing up years still have on my thoughts around food. In the 80s and 90s, high-school and college-age Michelle was told, again and again, that fat was the enemy. So the guilt still creeps in when I dive into a bowl of this deliciousness, because it’s just too creamy delicious for my mind to not categorize it as “junk food.” But the fat and sugar is the good stuff guys, so if you’re a girl of the low-fat era, let me reassure you, your body needs the good fat. 

Or maybe it’s just because I’m used to the guilt I feel when eating store-purchased ice cream that’s loaded with ingredients I can’t pronounce—all those fillers and chemicals. We dive into the problems with processed ice cream in this episode of the Simple Doesn’t Mean Easy podcast: Is Antifreeze in Ice Cream? (ep. 132)

But just look at these ingredients, folks. So simple. So real. So good.

Coffee Ice Cream Ingredients

3/4 cup maple syrup

4 shots espresso, chilled

1 1/2 cups whole milk

2 1/2 cups heavy cream

1 1/2 TB vanilla

1/8 tsp salt

Coffee Ice Cream Instructions

1. Whisk all the ingredients together in a medium sized bowl.
2. Place your frozen bowl, paddle, and lid on your ice cream maker & turn it on.
3. Pour your mixed ingredients into the moving, frozen bowl.
4. Let ice cream maker process for about 20-25 minutes, until the ice cream hardens up some. (It will still be soft serve consistency but you’ll notice the churning sound changes and becomes more belabored sounding.)
5. Add any optional ingredients you may want (cacao nibs and chocolate chips are both delicious) during the last few minutes of churning.

Notes

• This brand is the only espresso I use. It’s it’s mold free, toxin free, and shade-grown. These things all make for not only smooth, delicious coffee and espresso but zero bitterness and zero crash or icky feelings afterwards that coffee used to give me.
• If you want a caffeine-free, medicinal option, you can add 4 shots of double rich tea that tastes like coffee.
• If you don’t have maple syrup (first of all, I highly recommend you grab some right here and save with code SOULYRESTED), you can use 1 cup of raw cane sugar or refined sugar in place of the maple syrup in this recipe.
• Find out more about the best sugar to use in this Guide to Choosing a Sugar.
• The ice cream is on the soft side when it’s done. If you prefer it firmer, just freeze it in a freezer-safe container for an hour or so. Sometimes homemade ice cream turns pretty hard when you do this and needs to set out at room temperature for 10 minutes or so before it’s “scoop-able,” but that’s easy enough. 
• Don’t want to invest in a fancy espresso maker? This little stove top one does a great job.
• If you’re adding an ingredient in step 5, probably about 1 cup will be a good amount. 
• I sometimes substitute carob chips for chocolate chips. Carob chips taste similar to chocolate but they are actually a legume, which is anti-inflammatory, and helps with gut health. Unlike chocolate, which actually inhibits the amount of calcium your body is able to absorb, carob aids your body in digesting calcium (which, of course, this ice cream is full of).
• If you don’t have heavy cream on hand, combine 1 1/2 cups whole milk with 1/2 cup melted butter… Heat butter, add in milk when almost all melted and combine while heating together. Add maple syrup and vanilla to hot milk then add that mixture, little by little, while whisking, into cold milk. Then pour immediately into ice cream machine. This isn’t quite as delicious and it doesn’t store well (it hardens up to the point you can’t scoop it out) but in a pinch, it works.
• Another option is to simply use 4 cups of whole milk if you don’t have heavy cream.
• This set of stainless steel containers, with a sealed lid, is perfect for ice cream storage. The largest one will hold all of your finished ice cream and, if you choose to enjoy some soft serve and freeze the rest, the middle or small size will hold the left overs.
• My favorite way to enjoy this ice cream is plopped on top of a mint chocolate chip cookie baked in a mini cast iron pan, and straight out of the oven.
• Want a protein-packed dessert? Add 2 scoops of unflavored protein powder. Or feel free to choose a fun flavor of protein powder to compliment the coffee, like chocolate, salted caramel, snickerdoodle, or vanilla. Find all the flavor options in the best protein powder on the market, with zero junk, by clicking the protein powder linked below. (Trust me, you need this, it’s amazing.)

The tools I use to make this amazing Coffee Ice Cream

Talk to me!

If you have any questions, leave a comment below. And please tag me on ig @souly.rested if you try this delicious ice cream!

Want more?

My Maple Ice Cream Recipe

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

My Favorite Tools in my farmhouse kitchen

Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. I Cor. 10:31

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