How to Make Your Own Freeze Dried Ice Cream

Ice cream is a challenging treat, it’s delicious and sweet, but most definitely isn’t shelf-stable in it’s normal form. However, with freeze drying you can convert your favorite ice cream flavors into shelf-stable, delicious, crunchy treats. Even better? The crunchy preserved ice cream is still creamy when you eat it. This astronaut ice cream is a fun party favor, or gift, and is a favorite of toddlers and kids. Even if you don’t make much of it, a few batches can still be fun to run for personal use.

Remember, you can change candy in the freeze dryer, and you can also preserve fruit in it. So it’s not just for one item or one use. This option is super fun, and it’s great to use the freeze dryer to preserve something that’s normally not preserved or easily transportable.

Short answer is yes! Freeze drying is one of the few ways to turn ice-cream into a shelf stable treat. It is a “make for your own use” treat, that is easy to run, and delicious to eat. Kids, and adults, love freeze dried ice cream and it can make for wonderful, and unique, gifts.

The first time I encountered freeze dried ice-cream was actually several years ago at Science World in Vancouver, where they had freeze dried ice-cream sandwiches in the gift shop as “astronaut ice-cream,” like they send on space travel missions. They were packaged, one bar to a mylar bag, and were surprisingly tasty.

A smooth and creamy ice cream is the best one to use for freeze drying. Avoid any ice creams with a lot of mix-ins, like nuts, cookie dough chunks, or a lot of chocolate chips, the extra fat content can mess with the drying process, and the nuts or chips can become overly hard. A smooth Neapolitan, strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, or caramel swirl are good starting points.

For ice cream sandwiches, chose ones that are relatively basic with thin cookies. Thick cookies dehydrate like rocks, while thin cookies end up more like a wafer. Cut sandwich ice creams into 3rds or 4ths before processing, so they’re easier to package and eat.

Note: If you’re doing any allergen friendly runs, avoid running the allergens, like wheat or peanuts, at all in the freeze dryer, because you may not be able to fully clean the drum. I never run wheat products in my freeze dryer because I have allergic family members. So, keep that in mind when deciding what to run in your freeze dryer, or what it run in each freeze dryer if you have more than one.

There’s a lot of moisture in an ice-cream run, so keep an eye on your oil. You may need to change, or filter, the oil after each run or every second run, instead of every third or fourth run.

For the best experience with setting up your ice cream run, you want to pre-measure out your ice cream scoops onto your freeze dryer trays. Use real ice cream, but not super expensive, high fat, brands. You can also use homemade ice cream for your space ice cream adventures. Make with regular milk, and avoid doing custard based ice-cream with pure whipping cream as the high fat content can make the drying process less streamlined.

Slightly thaw your ice cream and make small scoops, about the size of a ping pong ball, and place them next to each other on the tray. Most freeze dryer trays can fit about 5×12, or 60ish scoops per tray. They can just touch, but don’t overlap the scoops for the drying ice cream.

Freeze filled trays overnight or for 24 hours in a chest freezer. You want ice-cream well frozen so that it doesn’t over-expand when under vacuum in the freeze dryer.

Start your freeze dryer with a pre-freeze cycle, down to -5 and possibly -10. See what works for your machine, and what recommendations are given by your machine’s manufacturer.

Let your device run through the freeze-drying process, after the pre-freeze, for 24-36 hours. You want the ice-cream to be bone dry, and crunchy.  Some brands may work better than others, often cheaper brands of ice-cream freeze dry better because of their lower fat content.

Once your ice cream is freeze dried, you want to package it for storage. Properly packaged, freeze dried foods can last for 25 years. This includes formerly non-shelf-stable items like ice-cream!

Use mylar bags with an oxygen absorber for long-term storage, and seal them up to be air-tight. Alternatively, you can use a jar sealer and standard canning jars with either an oxygen absorber or a silica packet, to help with your storage. Once the ice-cream is sealed in the bag or jar, it is safe to store in your dry-goods storage area. You do not need to refrigerate or freeze ice cream that is freeze dried.

Once a package is opened, consume within 1 week, up to 2 weeks if the package can be resealed. As long as the ice cream remains crisp, you know it’s safe for consumption.

Since mylar bags are normally opaque, make sure to label and date your packaged ice cream.

You can make gourmet freeze dried ice creams by using your basic ice-cream base, and adding something to the side of the ice cream scoop. Maybe half a sliced strawberry or something similar.

You can also drizzle the ice-cream with chocolate sauce, strawberry syrup, or caramel sauce, these sauces puff up in the freeze dryer and can turn an ordinary scoop of ice-cream into an “ice cream sundae” freeze dried bite.

Add sprinkles, or marshmallow fluff for a different type of sundae.

Also, you can freeze dry cheesecake too, even in the same run as ice-cream, and it’s just as delicious.

No matter what you make, make sure to keep the freeze dried food inside sealed containers, and store out of direct heat and light. Following these storage instructions will help keep you freeze dried goods safe and tasty for up to 25 years.

There are many other treats you can make in a freeze dryer, as well as foods and entire meals.

As mentioned above, you can freeze dry candies like skittles and marshmallows for a tasty, crunchy treat. You can also freeze dry most fruits and vegetables, and level up your home dried goods storage. Also, fruits make a very different version of nature’s candy, that’s amazing.

It’s less recommended to freeze dry baked goods, however, as they often become very hard and difficult to bite. Some baked goods have been freeze dried, but I prefer to avoid gluten containing goods, so don’t have experience with most baked items.

If you’re looking into a freeze dryer, or have been doing some freeze drying, what’s your favorite item, fruit, vegetable, or snack to process?

What other freeze dried items might you be interested in trying that you’d like me to see if I can try first?

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