Hot Chocolate Ice Cream

Hot Chocolate Ice Cream recipe with as few as 3 ingredients (plus marshmallows)! No ice cream machine needed for this no-churn recipe.

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When I was young(er), I always craved a hot chocolate drink whenever it rained. It doesn’t matter if it was 100 degrees in the middle of summer, I still wanted a mug of hot cocoa whenever it was wet outside.

Maybe this is because it didn’t snow that much, and I took any precipitation as good enough to cuddle up with a hot drink.

Either way, the two events were strongly associated in my head for a long time.

Considering we’ve been having pretty intense summer storms AND just had a hurricane barrel through the Carolinas, I have been craving a LOT of hot cocoa.

(I say “barrel through” even though #HurricaneFlo was really “crawling through” at like 3 mph, but you get me.)

Luckily I discovered a way to have my hot chocolate even when I don’t want a hot cup. Simply make it into ice cream!

Did you know that no-churn ice cream is one of the easiest things to make?

The most basic recipe for a no-churn ice cream is whipping cream (whipped) + sweetened condensed milk.

All you need to do is add flavorings, freeze it, and eat it!

Today, we are flavoring it with hot cocoa mix.

Can I make my own hot chocolate blend instead of using a packet? 

Of course! It is super easy to make your own hot cocoa mix – you just need unsweetened cocoa or cacao powder + sugar. (I like a 1:1 sugar to cocoa ratio but this depends on how sweet you’d like it.)

One normal hot chocolate packet = 2-3 tablespoons homemade mix.

You can get as fancy as you want with adding ground cinnamon or other flavorings.

I’ve seen recipes for the mix that also call for powdered milk, but I like to use my mixes with milk anyway instead of water so that would not be necessary (especially for this ice cream).

Whip that whipping cream in one bowl, and in another pull out a can of sweetened condensed milk (or make your own!) and add hot chocolate mix.

If you want to skip one of the mixing bowls, you can add the sweetened condensed milk + hot chocolate mix directly to the whipped whipping cream.

You’ll just need to be a little more careful to not over-mix the cream! 

Then you can mix in some marshmallows or sprinkle them on top when you’re about to freeze it!

Wait – are marshmallows vegetarian?

Long-time vegetarians know that most marshmallows are not vegetarian because they are made with gelatin.

Luckily there are are versions available like Dandies that are made without gelatin that keep it vegetarian friendly!

I didn’t happen to have the mini marshmallows, so I tore jumbo ones into smaller pieces to sprinkle on top.

And yes, I like mine a little melted!

Hot Chocolate Ice Cream vs Frozen Hot Chocolate

You may have heard of “frozen hot chocolate” which was made famous by the dessert shop Serendipity. Their main location is in NYC but I visited one of their locations on a Las Vegas trip.

From what I understand, frozen hot chocolate is basically the same ingredients as this ice cream recipe (but uses a custom blend of cocoa mix, of course). 

The whipping cream is not whipped first and it is blended with ice, rather than made into ice cream.

So if you’d rather drink this and call it frozen hot chocolate, skip the freezer and blend it with ice!