Blueberry Cheesecake Ice Cream

Next up on what’s quickly becoming the summer of frozen treats around here is this awesome Blueberry Cheesecake Ice Cream. After all, July is National Ice Cream Month, a perfect excuse to make more ice cream!

Truth be told, I’m really not a big cheesecake fan, except for my out-of-this-world delicious Creamy Cheesecake with Berry Sauce I’ve shared before. It’s a creamier style cheesecake rather than a thicker, cake-like cheesecake. I love it topped with a berry sauce.  It’s so freakin’ good! So I thought it was about time I turn my favorite cheesecake recipe into ice cream.

Cream cheese, sour cream, eggs, sugar, vanilla and lemon juice are the basic ingredients in my favorite cheesecake recipe, all of which works in an ice cream recipe so why not?  Plus, I’ve wanted to add to my repertoire an ice cream recipe that doesn’t use eggs and thought with cream cheese and sour cream this would be the perfect recipe to try it out on. You know what? It turned out PERFECT! And another bonus of not using eggs… no cooking the custard base.  All I did was blend it up in a food processor, let it get nice and cold in the fridge, then churned it in my ice cream maker.

The ice cream recipe by itself makes a really creamy, delicious ice cream which is fantastic all by itself, but what takes it over the top today are two things:

• Blueberry sauce swirl – sweet, blueberry sauce with big bursting blueberries swirled throughout!
• Graham cracker crumble – it’s cheesecake in ice cream form so we gotta have some of that yummy graham cracker crunchiness!

I hope you add this Blueberry Cheesecake Ice Cream recipe to your ice cream making list this summer. It’s sooooo good!  It’s my new favorite version of cheesecake ever!

Blueberry Cheesecake Ice Cream

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

For the Ice Cream base:

• 8oz. cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 C. sour cream
• 1 C. whole milk
• 1/2 C. heavy cream
• 3/4 C. sugar
• 2 Tbls. vanilla
• 1/2 lemon, juiced

For the Blueberry sauce:

• 1 pint blueberries
• 1/2 C. water
• 1/2 C. sugar
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 1 Tbls. corn starch

For the Graham Cracker crumble:

• 1 package graham crackers (one wrapped envelope from box)
• 1/2 C. flour
• 1/4 C. brown sugar
• 1/2 stick butter, melted

Instructions

1. Make the Ice Cream base: In blender or food processor, or use a hand mixer, add ice cream base ingredients and blend to combine ingredients. Pour into container and refrigerate several hours or overnight to completely chill the mixture.
2. Make the Blueberry sauce: Combine blueberry sauce ingredients into saucepan. Stir well and bring mixture to boil. Reduce heat and cook a several minutes until sauce is thickened. You can crush the blueberries if you want or leave them whole. Pour into container and chill in refrigerator.
3. Make the Graham Cracker crumble: Preheat oven to 350° Crush the graham crackers into coarse crumbles. Combine graham crackers in bowl with remaining crumble ingredients. Stir thoroughly to combine ingredients and make sure they’re all covered with the melted butter. Spread on baking sheet and bake in oven about 10-15 minutes. Stir a few times while baking. Remove from oven and let cool. Store in plastic bag until ready to use.
4. Make the Ice Cream: Churn ice cream base in ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s directions. Mine takes about 20 minutes. Just prior to finishing, pour some of the graham cracker crumble into the machine, about 1 -1 1/2 cups (as much as you want).
5. In freezer container, pour half of ice cream mixture. Layer some blueberry sauce (you could add more crumble here if you want). Top with remaining ice cream, then more blueberry sauce. Using a knife, lightly swirl the sauce through the ice cream. Sprinkle more crumble on top, cover and freeze until frozen throughout.