Homemade Cold Stone Sweet Cream

Published March 26, 2012. Updated February 14, 2024

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Homemade Cold Stone Sweet Cream Ice Cream is the healthier and cheaper way to enjoy your favorite dessert—anytime you want it! It’s so fun to make at home with your kids, and it’s WAY better than your average scoop of vanilla ice cream. Trust me! 

Ice cream is something I will never give up!  It’s just one of those things that makes life good.  It makes life simple for a moment to just be able to sit back on the comfy sofa or in the warm sunshine and enjoy a generous scoop of silky smooth, perfectly sweet ice cream.  I can’t explain my addiction but at least I will admit it =).

Homemade Cold Stone Sweet Cream Ice Cream
My all-time favorite is Cold Stone Creamery’s Sweet Cream Ice Cream.  So, of course, I’ve had to figure out how to make it on my own at home.  I’d have to say the recipe I created tastes exactly the same.  I did make a change in ingredients compared to what they use, they use guar gum as a thickener but I didn’t want to purchase it so I used cornstarch in my recipe.

The benefits of guar gum are that you don’t have to heat the ice cream for it to thicken, whereas with cornstarch you do.  But the benefit of cornstarch is that it is a much more common household ingredient so you likely already have it on hand and use it for other recipes.

To explain Cold Stone Creamery’s Sweet Cream Ice Cream I would call it The Ice Cream of the Gods.  Purely decadent, silky smooth, simple yet unbelievably incredible, and the perfect base for any “mix-in.”  My personal favorite “mix-ins” for my Homemade Cold Stone Sweet Cream Ice Cream are Oreos or brownies.

I also love raspberries and graham cracker crust.  Oh and Twix, okay okay I love them all but my top fav is Oreos.  What’s your favorite mix-in?  Pick your favorite and add it to this insanely delicious Sweet Cream Ice Cream recipe.  I also love to eat it excluding mix-ins, it’s so amazingly good no mix-ins are needed, just a bonus if desired.

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4.91 from 10 votes

Cold Stone Creamery Sweet Cream Ice Cream – make it at home!

Copycat Cold Stone Creamy Sweet Cream Ice Cream! One of my favorite ice cream recipes!
Servings: 6
Prep10 minutes
Cook10 minutes
Chill4 hours
Ready in: 20 minutes

Ingredients

Recommended mix ins:

  • crushed oreos
  • cookie dough bites , chopped
  • crushed graham cracker or graham pie crust
  • berries
  • diced brownies
  • sprinkles
  • chopped chopped candy bars
  • caramel , chocolate or berry sauce
  • crushed sugar cones or waffle cones
  • chocolate chips
  • chopped nuts
  • ...basically whatever you feel like =)

Instructions

  • In a large saucepan, whisk together sugar and cornstarch until combine. Pour in cream, milk and corn syrup and whisk until well blended. Cook mixture over medium heat (sometimes I even cook it over medium high to speed it up a bit), stirring constantly until mixture comes just to a gentle boil. 
  • Once mixture reaches a gentle boil, reduce heat and allow mixture to gently bubble, stirring constantly, for 30 seconds. Strain mixture through a fine mesh sieve into a large bowl. Cover mixture with saran wrap or wax paper, pressing directly against the surface of the ice cream base to prevent a skin from forming. 
  • Refrigerate mixture until fully chilled, then transfer to freezer and freeze 1 hour - 1 1/2 hours (I've found this really helps the ice cream structure when freezing post ice cream maker processing, it basically gives it a head start). Transfer extra chilled ice cream mixture to an ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturers directions. 
  • Transfer ice cream to an airtight container and freeze until nearly firm, or freeze until firm and soften in microwave about 5-10 seconds until slightly softened. Mix in desired "mix-ins" (if you wanted to prepare just as Cold Stone does, you could freeze a marble slab then use two large spoons to fold in mix-ins using chilled marble slab, or alternately you could add the mix-ins in during the last 5 minutes of processing in ice cream maker).

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84 Comments

  • Amanda

    Just curious how would one modify this recipe to make cold stones French vanilla ice cream?

  • BECCI BOO

    I used 1 C cream, 1 C Half & Half and 1 C Milk to cut down just a bit on the fat. But your recipe is dynamite! I want to adapt it to the microwave though. I’ll let you know how that goes later. And might buy the gum to try, would love to eliminate the cooking.

    Again Thanks for a great recipe.

  • KD

    You do not know how you have made me happy here!!! They dont have Cold Stone or Marble Slab in Memphis and I have been losing my mind trying to figure out getting my fix. I normally mix Pistachio and Sweet Cream with graham cracker mixed. It is what I dream about and you have made my dreams come true. I am truly going to get a ice cream maker just for this. Now all I need to do is figure out the pistachio part lol. Thank you sooo much!!

  • Chelsea

    This is great! I wanted to find out it where I could find a marble slab to mix? I wanted to have an Ice Cream social, and do you know how it stays cold wants frozen?

    • Jaclyn

      Jaclyn Bell

      They have marble slabs at places like crate and barrel. I’m not sure how long they stay cold though.

  • angela

    I just made this for the second time. Yum! We love it so much, we might not ever go to Stone Cold again.

  • Steve

    Deborah: Thank you so much for the recipe!
    We love Cold Stone Creamery!
    My question is this:
    Is this mixture suppose to “expand” as regular ice cream recipe’s do?
    Mine did not expand at all – what I put in, was what I got out!
    I have a 5 qt. mixer so adjusted accordingly – the taste was AWESOME, but very soft – melting very quickly.
    I noticed just a hint of after taste when eating what I froze, that didn’t get consumed the first time around – I kind of attribute that to the corn starch! At least that’s my take on it. I’m going to try Guar Gum in the next batch to see if it will stay thicker a little longer.
    I’ll try the 1tbs per 1 1/2 qts. and see how that comes out. Wish me luck!!
    Thank you again!!!
    Happy New Year!!! :-)

  • Deborah

    I live in Kenya but spent tons of time in the States and it’s one thing I miss – Cold Stone’s Sweet Cream Ice Cream. Amazing – you’ve made my day (year!)