Maple Walnut Ice Cream

Vermont in a bowl. This is the old-fashioned hand-cranked ice cream recipe that uses real maple sugar (granulated maple syrup turned to crystals) plus maple syrup as the only sweeteners. No custard, no eggs, no fuss. The cream and the maple do all the work.

Scalding the cream is the key first step. Heating the cream to just below a boil dissolves the maple sugar fully and lets the syrup bloom into the dairy. Skip the heat and you’ll get grainy ice cream with sugar crystals you can feel against your teeth.

The overnight chill matters. Glass holds cold better than metal or plastic, and a full overnight rest in the fridge gives the cream time to thicken and the maple flavor time to develop. Churning warm cream gives you soupy ice cream that won’t freeze hard.

Adding walnuts and chopped hard maple sugar in the last 20 cranks (equivalent to the final 2 to 3 minutes in a modern machine) keeps them from sinking and stops the maple sugar candy from dissolving completely. You want crunchy maple bits and intact walnut pieces in the finished cream.

Pro Tips

• Use Grade A Dark (formerly Grade B) maple syrup for the deepest flavor. Lighter syrups taste delicate and get lost in the cream.
• Toast the walnuts in a dry skillet for 5 minutes before chopping. Toasted nuts hold their crunch in the freezer instead of going soggy.
• Hard maple sugar candy can be tough to find. Substitute crushed maple-flavored hard candies or skip entirely if needed.
• Pack into a chilled container and freeze 4 to 6 hours before scooping. Fresh-churned ice cream is too soft to scoop neatly.

Variations

• Add a tablespoon of bourbon or rum to the cream before chilling for a boozy maple ice cream.
• Swirl in a ribbon of maple syrup or caramel sauce after churning, before the final freeze.
• Replace walnuts with toasted pecans or candied pecans for a sweeter nut profile.