This mixed berry lemon ice cream is as delicious and magical as it looks! And it’s one of my favorite ice cream recipes to make every summer. The last few weeks have been pretty exciting (not to mention bone dry and hot here). I just finalized the cover page and the manuscript for my Secret Layer Cakes cookbook, and have started testing some recipes for autumn (yes, I’m slowly switching gears to Fall recipes already – ’tis the life of a food blogger!). And that is while also being in the mood for some super simple yet delicious summer recipes. I made this all natural No Churn Galaxy Ice Cream a while ago, but only finished the recipe video a couple of days ago. And I promise, it’s a dooozy! Yes, the galaxy trend may well be a dying fad these days, but I’ve been on this bandwagon for years! 🙂 I love the colors blue and purple, and co-incidentally dyed my hair in galaxy colors too. While my galaxy lemonade and color changing galaxy cocktails were really fun to make and experiment with, I really wanted to make a galaxy ice cream version as well!
What’s unique about this galaxy ice cream recipe
For sure, there are a lot of no churn galaxy ice cream recipes out there. All of them no churn, and all of them pretty. So why is this recipe different? My version of galaxy ice cream uses absolutely NO FOOD COLORING! I use natural fruit puree and ingredients to get all of those colors and as a result this ice cream has a lovely berry lemon flavor as well.
How I get the colors for this no churn galaxy ice cream
Pink – raspberry puree Purple – blackberry puree Blue – butterfly pea extract (to learn more about this ingredient check out my galaxy lemonade slushie post) Black – activated coconut charcoal powder, mixed with lemon juice
If you have never used activated coconut charcoal before, don’t fret for a second about using this ingredient! It’s a completely natural ingredient, and has a lot of health benefits too – removing toxins and chemicals from the body, key among them. It’s charcoal made by burning coconut shells and heated with a gas so that it develops internal pores that bind and trap chemicals. Bear in mind that it has an ever so slight gritty texture, but not so gritty that you notice it when you eat this ice cream.
More recipe tips for galaxy ice cream
The most popular way to make no churn ice cream is to use condensed milk + whipped cream. You can substitute the condensed milk with equal amounts of vanilla custard, or vanilla pudding or softened cream cheese. (However, the cream cheese base will turn butterfly pea extract from blue to purple). Most recipes call for the whipped cream to be at stiff peaks before being mixed in with the condensed milk. I don’t do this – I only whip the cream to soft peaks or very soft peaks. This is to make sure that the ice cream has a more dense mouthfeel similar to regular ice cream, and it doesn’t melt too easily (because more whipping = more air = faster melting). Because I use natural colors and flavorings, this no churn galaxy ice cream has a paler, more pastel like color. But it tastes infinitely better! Plus, I try to avoid using black food coloring, and the activated coconut charcoal powder is a great alternative for this ice cream.
To accentuate the galaxy look, I made a black chocolate magic shell to coat the ice cream and then sprinkled silver pearls and stars! 🙂 Dipping the ice cream in the magic shell took me back to the days when I used to work at a movie theater, where I spent untold hours scooping ice cream and dipping them in chocolate to make choc tops! I used activated coconut charcoal to get the black color for both the ice cream and the chocolate magic shell. But if you can’t find or don’t want to use activated charcoal – simply omit the black color and divide and color the base with the remaining 3 colors. That’ll give you all natural no churn unicorn ice cream instead! 🙂 And by now you guys know my obsession with butterfly pea flowers for years (color changing ice, galaxy lemonade, color changing alcohol and color changing cocktails)! I made a butterfly pea flower extract using just water, sugar and the flowers. This concentrated blue extract can be added directly to the ice cream base and it’ll take on that gorgeous pastel blue color. But if the base has any acidity, it’ll turn purple, which is why the blue base here is flavored with vanilla. Not only does this no churn galaxy ice cream look really pretty, but it tastes addictively delicious too! It has a wonderful mix of natural vanilla, lemon, raspberry and blackberry flavors swirled throughout, and it tastes really fresh and creamy too. And the charcoal chocolate magic shell is also a great way to hide your fun and colorful galaxy ice cream when you serve this to unsuspecting guests, and then watch their delight as they find out the magic lurking beneath the chocolate coating! 🙂 I have also shared tips on how you can serve this at parties, in the recipe below, because let’s face it – you know you can’t say no to a fun galaxy ice cream cone with a magic chocolate shell at a party!
Galaxy ice cream recipe video
More refreshing summer recipes
Color changing galaxy lemonade No churn rainbow ice cream slice Classic vanilla ice cream Chocolate ice cream The best mint chocolate chip ice cream Easy fruit sorbet Strawberry shortcake ice cream Refreshing mango lassi Delicious falooda drink Brown sugar oat milk shaken espresso Creamy vanilla popsicles
