Lychee Ice Cream Recipe - Creamy and Luscious (How to Make) (2024)

Published: Aug 16, 2022 · Modified: Apr 14, 2023 by Priya Maha

If you love lychees, you will love this homemade lychee ice cream. It has an amazingly smooth and creamy texture with a lovely sweet flavor of lychees.

As you take on each spoon, you will get to taste not only the decadent and luscious tropical flavor in the lychee ice cream, you will also get to taste juicy chunks of lychee fruits, making this a truly yummy fruit flavored ice cream!

What is Lychee

Lychee is a tropical fruit. Lychee trees are grown mostly in China and some parts of the Southeast Asian region. The fruits are about the size of strawberries and are green when young and red when fully ripe.

The fruits have a coarse thin skin that needs to be peeled and discarded to enjoy the sweet white juicy flesh inside. At the core of each fruit is a long brown seed that should be discarded too.

The lychee fruit is not only known for its sweet and tangy juicy taste, it is also well known for its a lovely floral scent. Given the sweet and citrusy taste of the fruit, lychees are not only great to be enjoyed as fruits, they are excellent for making drinks and desserts like this lychee ice cream recipe and my lychee lemonade, lychee tea, lychee jelly, lychee green tea and lychee rose cake.

Homemade Ice Cream

This is a churned ice cream recipe. It is made of only 4 easy ingredients ie lychees, sugar, milk and cream. You can use both fresh lychees as well as canned lychees to make this easy and smooth ice cream.

The lychees are blended and then strained for their juice which is then added sugar and cooked into a thick syrup with honey-like consistency.

The lychee mixture is mixed with milk and cream and then chilled thoroughly before the mixture is slow churned in an ice cream maker. Halfway through churning, chopped lychee are added into the ice cream for extra texture and lychee flavor.

And don't worry if you do not have an ice cream machine. This homemade ice cream can still be made without an ice cream machine. You can use blender instead. To make the ice cream in a blender, once the syrup, milk and cream are mixed together, pour the solution into a freezer safe container and freeze it until set. Once set, remove from the freezer and break the frozen solution into chunks with a spoon. Place the ice cream chunks into blender and blend until smooth. And then pour the blended ice cream back into its container and mix in the chopped lychees. Freeze until set and the ice cream is ready to be savored!

How to Make

Ingredients

• Lychees (Canned or fresh lychee)
• Full fat milk
• Heavy cream (with at least 35% fat)
• Sugar
• Lychee extract or essence (optional)

Making the lychee syrup

1. Drain the canned lychees and add the fruits into a food processor (reserve some to add into the ice cream later).
2. Process them until fine. Add a few tablespoons of the syrup from the can if necessary.
3. Strain the lychees to separate the lychee pulp. Use a fine mesh sieve or a cheesecloth. Squeeze the pulp to extract as much juice as possible. Discard the pulp.
4. Pour the lychee juice into a small pot.
5. Add sugar and cook on low to medium heat until the syrup thickens to a consistency of honey.
6. Turn off the heat and let the syrup cool down slightly.

Mixing the ice cream solution

1. Add milk into the syrup. Stir well to mix the syrup and the milk.
2. Add the fresh cream and lychee essence (if using) and mix well again.

Method 1: Slow churn ice cream machine or ice cream maker method

1. Chill the solution in the refrigerator until it is thoroughly chilled. This should take at least 2 hours. If you want to get it chilled faster, place it in the freezer for about 1 hour. You can also leave the solution overnight in the fridge if you are not in a hurry, but do not freeze it.
2. Pour the chilled ice cream solution into an ice cream maker bowl and churn according to the manufacturer instructions. Follow the instructions as stated in your ice cream maker manual as each machine works differently. Also, make sure that the quantity of the liquid is not exceeding the capacity of your machine. This recipe makes enough quantity for ice cream makers with a capacity of one and a half quarts. Also do note that as the ice cream is being churned, it will increase in volume. So make sure you do not fill your ice cream maker tub anymore than the capacity it is intended for.
3. Turn on the machine and let it churn the ice cream. I churn mine for 1 hour, but be sure to check the maximum time for your machines.
4. At about 45 minutes to the churning process, chop the remaining lychees into small chunks. Add the chopped lychees to the ice cream.
5. Let the ice cream continue to churn until the 60 minutes is up. At this stage, the ice cream should be perfectly churned. But it may still be a little soft (like a soft-serve ice cream consistency).
6. Transfer the lychee ice cream into a container and freeze it until completely set before serving.

Method 2: Blender Ice Cream Method

• Follow the steps above for making the lychee syrup and mixing the ice cream solution. Once the ice cream solution is ready, pour it into a container and freeze until it is completely set. This should take at least 4 to 6 hours. Let it freeze longer if required to ensure the ice cream is all set. You will need to break the ice into smaller chunks and it will be easier to break if the ice cream is frozen in a thin layer. For this purpose, it will be helpful to pour the solution into a shallow, wide container.
• Once fully frozen, break the ice cream into chunks with a spoon. Add the ice cream chunks into a blender and blend until the ice cream turns into a smoothie-like consistency. At this stage, you will have to work quickly to avoid the ice cream from melting too much. Do not blend for too long. Suffice if the ice cream reaches a smoothie like consistency.
• Pour the blended ice cream into its container. Chop the remaining lychees and add into the ice cream. Mix well. If the ice cream solution appears a little too melted, place it in the freezer for 1 to 2 hours to harden it a little. At this stage, you can add the chopped lychees and mix thoroughly to distribute them. Adding the fruits when the ice cream is too soft will result in the fruits sinking to the bottom.
• Let the lychee ice cream set in the freezer for at least 3 to 4 hours before serving.

Serving the homemade ice cream

• Scoop the ice cream into serving cups with an ice cream scoop. The ice cream should not be too hard to scoop if you use the exact same quantity of ingredients mentioned in my recipe card below and the ice cream is frozen at -13 degrees Celsius.
• But if it is hard for some reason, do not worry. Leave the ice cream container out for a few minutes. It should be a lot easier to scoop your ice cream then.

Notes

Can you adjust the ratio of milk to cream?

• Technically you can. Increasing the ratio of milk will result in a less creamy ice cream as the cream is reduced, and similarly if the ratio of cream is increased, your ice cream will have a stronger cream taste.
• Generally, ice creams taste better with a higher ratio of cream to milk but this is a matter of taste preference.

Why do you need to cook the syrup to a thick consistency?

• Too much water in the ice cream will result in the ice cream having ice crystals and taste like water-based ice creams.
• Cooking the syrup to a thick consistency literally reduces the liquid in the syrup and will help ensure your ice cream remains creamy and of a nice texture.

Can you cook the lychee juice into syrup without straining it?

• Yes you can.
• However, you might be able to taste or feel the pulp as you eat the ice cream. If you are someone who do not like the fruit pulp in your ice cream, it is best to strain the juice and remove the pulp.

Can you omit the lychee fruit chunks in the ice cream?

• Yes, you can. The chopped fruits will freeze into tiny chunks of frozen fruits and if you do not particularly like those pieces of lychee in your ice cream, you can totally omit the chopped fruits from this recipe.

Flavor options

• You can use this recipe to make lychee rose ice cream simply by adding a few drops of rose essence into the ice cream mixture before chilling it.

Why do you need to chill the ice cream base before churning it?

• The colder your ice cream solution, the faster it will be churned and less stress on your machine. Hence, it is recommended that the ice cream solution is thoroughly chilled before being churned.

What is the best temperature to freeze the ice cream?

• I freeze my ice creams at negative 13 degrees Celsius.

What if the ice cream is too hard to scoop?

• If you find the ice cream too hard to scoop, leave it at room temperature for a minute or two. That will soften it a little and it will be a lot easier to scoop it out.

Like this ice cream recipe? Here are my other posts and recipes you might want to check out:

• Lychee Lemonade - Easy Lemon Lychee Iced Drink
• Lychee Syrup - Easy Homemade Recipe from Scratch
• Chocolate Chocolate Chip Ice Cream - A Simple Homemade Ice Cream Recipe
• Lychee Jelly - Easy Agar-Agar Recipe with Fruits
• Homemade Chocolate Ice Cream - Perfectly Smooth and Creamy
• Carrot Ice Cream - Simple Homemade Recipe
• Lychee Tea - Easy, Fragrant and Absolutely Refreshing
• How to Make Lychee Jelly for Bubble Tea

Recipe (Printable)

Here is the full printable version of my lychee ice cream recipe.

📖Recipe

And that's pretty much how to make the homemade lychee ice cream with an ice maker or with a blender.

Enjoy!