Honey Lemon Ice Cream

I’ve been buying lemons by the boxful from farmers in Spain, and despite the cold weather, have been making this lemon ice cream on rotation. It’s refreshing, a little tart, and the very slight coconut flavour plays off the citrus nicely.

Using honey instead of sugar serves more than one purpose – it tastes great, especially with the lemon, and also helps to prevent crystal formation. This results in a smoother bite, particularly important with a dairy-free ice cream.

This recipe uses eggs for a more traditional custard-based ice cream. If you’re looking for a fully plant-based version, try my vegan coconut ice cream, and sub in some lemon juice and zest.

Scroll to the bottom of the post or click “skip to recipe” above to see the recipe card with full ingredient measurements and instructions.

Ingredients

• Coconut Cream: this can be bought specifically as coconut cream, or scooped from the top of a couple cans of full-fat coconut milk. Don’t use the water.
• Honey: adds a lovely flavour, and improves the texture of the ice cream by keeping it softer when frozen.
• Eggs: yolks only. Eggs act as the thickening agent in this traditional style custard.
• Lemon Zest: organic, unwaxed lemons if you can get them. The zest does add a bit of texture but also makes for the brightest flavour – don’t omit it.
• Lemon Juice: adds a touch of acidity, especially as it isn’t cooked.
• Vanilla: lemon and vanilla are a stellar flavour combination, like birthday cake. I used a whole bean but extract, powder, or paste are equally good (all I had was a bean).

Method

Combine the coconut milk, honey, vanilla, and lemon zest in a saucepan over low-medium heat and cook for about five minutes, or until the honey is entirely incorporated into the cream.

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Whisk the egg yolks in a medium sized bowl. Add a quarter cup of the heated cream mixture to the egg yolks and whisk thoroughly. Add the remaining cream mixture and whisk again to combine.

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Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and cook over low-medium heat, stirring constantly, for about ten minutes, or until it coats the back of a wooden spoon (see picture).

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Remove from heat and stir in the lemon juice. Let the custard cool slightly before covering and refrigerating until chilled through, at least four hours.

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Once the custard has chilled, add it to your ice cream maker and churn according to the machine instructions. See Tips below for how to make it without a machine.

Once the ice cream has churned, serve immediately or freeze in an airtight container. Thaw at room temperature for about ten minutes before serving if frozen through. Freeze for up to a month.

Tips and Notes

For a double lemon ice cream, try swirling in some honey lemon curd immediately before freezing fully. Other additions like raspberry jam are nice too.

I haven’t tried this particular recipe without an ice cream maker, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work with one of the normal methods.

You can make a kind of granita by pouring the custard into a freezer-safe dish and stirring it with a fork every hour while it freezes. Alternatively, if you have a high-powered blender, freeze the custard in chunks (in an ice cube tray, for example), and blend once frozen to make a smooth ice cream.

Adding a small amount of the hot milk mixture to the egg yolks before adding the rest tempers the yolks, preventing them from scrambling. Don’t skip this step.

It will take about ten minutes to cook the custard down, as it does with any egg-based custard. Grab a stool if you need and keep stirring or you’ll get scrambled egg ice cream. See the image above to show how it coats the back of a spoon when ready – this becomes second nature in time.

Substitutions

Try other citrus flavours – orange or blood orange are both excellent. You can also try subbing the lemon juice with grapefruit juice, or use multiple types of citrus. Bergamot is lovely and very floral if you can get them.

Maple syrup or another liquid sweetener can work in place of honey in a pinch. I don’t recommend this, as it will be a harder ice cream when frozen.

I use full-fat coconut milk simply because it’s easier to find in shops, but an equal amount of coconut cream will be richer. If you can get the large cans of coconut cream (usually 80% coconut) use that instead. I just scoop the cream out of the can and use that.

I don’t recommend trying to make this vegan with starches or other substitutes. I’m afraid I have never tried to make this particular recipe vegan and can’t advise on it.

More Frozen Desserts

Blueberry Swirl Coconut Milk Popsicles
Three Ingredient Chocolate Coconut Milk Ice Cream
Vegan Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
Dreamy Peanut Butter Banana Popsicles
Dairy Free Magic Shell Ice Cream Bars

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This post was originally published in August 2014. It has been most recently updated as of March 2021.