THE ITALIAN WAY TO ICE CREAM
A Classic Thickener That Still Holds Up
Cornstarch has been a staple in ice cream making for decades—especially in Sicilian-style gelato—and for good reason. It’s affordable, widely available, and easy to use. But more importantly, when used correctly, cornstarch can produce a smooth, creamy, and scoopable texture without eggs or hard-to-find commercial stabilisers.
It’s also a smart choice for lightening up your ice cream: by using cornstarch, you can significantly reduce the amount of heavy cream in your recipe and still achieve that rich, satisfying mouthfeel home cooks love.
In this post, we’ll explore:
What It Is | How Do I Use It? | How much should I use? | EXCLUSIVE: the no-stirring over the stove top method
top ice cream recipes made with cornstarch:
or see:
Cornstarch (aka cornflour or corn maize) is a fine, white powder made from the starchy part of corn kernels. In ice cream, it acts as a thickener and stabiliser, helping to:
Prevent large ice crystals
Reduce the heavy cream needed
Improve texture and body
Enhance scoopability
Last longer in the freezer
When heated to the right temperature, cornstarch gelatinises, thickening the base into a smooth custard-like consistency, without the need for eggs.
Using cornstarch correctly is simple, but technique matters. Here’s a foolproof step-by-step guide:
Heat the Base: In a saucepan, combine the remaining milk and sugar. Heat over medium heat, stirring often, until it begins to steam.
Add the Slurry: Slowly whisk the warm milk into the cornstarch slurry, whisking constantly; then return everything back to the pan and over medium heat.
Cook to Activate: Continue to stir and gently bring the mixture to a soft boil. Cornstarch needs to reach 72–80°C (160–176°F) to fully thicken. As soon as it starts to thicken, remove from the heat.
Cool, Chill, and Churn: Pour through a fine-mesh sieve and into a heatproof bowl, stir in the heavy cream, cool down quickly over an ice bath, and refrigerate until fully chilled before churning.
Prefer a faster method that skips the stovetop stirring?
• Try this no-stir cornstarch technique used by pastry chefs
Common mistakes to avoid:
Undercooking the base → If you don’t heat the base to at least 72°C (160°F), the cornstarch won’t fully gelatinise. This leaves you with a grainy texture and a faint, starchy aftertaste.
Overcooking the base → Cooking cornstarch for too long or at too high a heat causes it to break down, thinning the mixture back out and giving it a slippery or stringy texture.
You’ll notice this during cooking: the base will thicken, then suddenly loosen again. To prevent this, as soon as it thickens; or reaches 72–80°C (160–176°F) remove it from the heat to preserve structure and mouthfeel.
Adding cornstarch directly to hot liquid → Causes clumping. Always make a slurry first.
To make great ice cream, you need more than just cold ingredients in your ice cream mixture. You need structure—
something that holds the air you whip in and keeps it there once it’s frozen.
That’s what gives ice cream its lightness and scoopability. Without structure, the air escapes during churning, and the result freezes solid—dense, icy, and difficult to scoop.
Thin Mixtures Freeze Hard and Can’t Hold Air
If you mix just milk and sugar, it might look fine at first. But milk is mostly water. And water is too thin to hold air.
So instead of fluffing up in the churner, the mixture stays thin and freezes into icy slush.
Once it sets in the freezer, it becomes rock-hard. No fluff, no softness—just a block of frozen sweet liquid.
A Thick Base Helps Air Stay in the Ice Cream
A good ice cream base should feel slightly thick before you churn it. That thickness helps trap the air added during churning, giving you a soft, fluffy texture and a cleaner scoop.
You can build that thickness in a few ways:
By adding more heavy cream, which brings fat and solids.
By using egg yolks, which thicken the base as they cook.
Or by using starch, like cornstarch, to add just enough body without the extra fat or fuss.
Why cornstarch?
Cornstarch thickens just enough to trap air and keep everything stable once frozen.
It’s simple, accessible, and lets you cut back on cream without sacrificing that satisfying, scoopable texture.
Done right, it gives you:
Plus, it plays well with the fat you do use—helping everything stay creamy instead of icy.
Cornstarch expands more during churning than any other starch. That means more air, more volume, and better scoopability.
It’s not flashy. No one’s bragging about “cornstarch ice cream” on a tasting menu.
But it works. Reliably. And it makes great ice cream—especially if you’re trying to keep things lighter, egg-free, or just more cost-effective.
Simple, effective, underrated.
Cornstarch is the quiet MVP in your freezer.
Thin Mixtures Freeze Hard and Can’t Hold Air
If you try to reduce the fat in an ice cream recipe, you will notice how cold it feels when you eat it. Just think about those headaches you get when you eat ice cream fast; when the ice cream is low in fat, you will get this unpleasant brain-freeze very quickly.
The food industry knows that, so in order to reduce the fat, they use ingredients that make the ice cream feel “warmer” when you eat it. And they have a good reason to reduce the cream they use: butterfat is a rather expensive ingredient. In fact, butterfat is so costly that lately, in industrial ice cream, it has been replaced by (the very cheap) palm oil, which gives a weird mouthfeel to the ice cream.
So, next time you compare two ice cream cartons at the grocery store and wonder why the one is so expensive, read the ingredients on the packaging. Chances are that the expensive one contains heavy cream, whereas the cheaper one contains palm oil (along with some hard-to-read industrial ingredients to make for a cheap imitation of real ice cream).
One of the joys of making your own ice cream at home, is that you have control over the ingredients you use. Without paying a fortune, you enjoy an artisanal ice cream made with the same ingredients (real milk and cream) of that of a high-end ice cream parlour. Your own homemade ice cream will be superb, even with budget-friendly milk and cream.
all your ice cream recipes with cornstarch in one place
this is not a cornstarch recipe; it is made with blueberries, milk, cream, and sugar. Blueberries contain pectin which makes the addition of cornstarch unnecessary.
with chocolate, cocoa powder, milk, cream, sugar, and cornstarch
with chocolate, milk, cream, sugar, and cornstarch
with cocoa powder, milk, cream, sugar, and cornstarch
with white chocolate, milk, cream, sugar, and cornstarch
( We ♥️ questions )
4 Responses
Corn starch is also used in British Bird’s Custard Powder – where eggs are not used. This makes a pouring custard that can be frozen to make ice cream.
Basically, ALL ice creams are frozen custards. Italians use egg or starch based custard. Any ingredient that thickens milk can be used. However, rich American ice cream relies mainly on it’s high sugar and cream content.
That is very well put, Brian! Thanks for the addition. 🙂
Dear Ice cream Queen,
I would love to have you make a video for a three flavor Sicilian Spumoni Ice Cream
outside is a chocolate cinnamon middle is a Almond or pistachio white and in the center is a maraschino cherry ice cream.
Thanks so much for the suggestion—it sounds like a beautiful combination, and I really appreciate you taking the time to share it. At the moment I’m focusing on a set content plan, but I’ll definitely keep it in mind for future ideas. It’s a classic with a lot of character. 🙂