No Churn Icelandic Rye Bread Ice Cream Recipe

If you're a long-time follower of this blog, you might know that I first made no churn Icelandic rye bread ice cream back in 2015 following a trip to Reykjavik. Since it shared a blog post with another recipe and is quite hard to find, I decided to give it its own blog post (as it deserves!).

I ate this wonderful Icelandic rye bread ice cream in Cafe Loki in Reykjavik, along with their rúgbrauð ('rye bread'). I absolutely fell in love. And while I had an oven that I could use in lieu of a hot spring to bake the bread (as shown in my rúgbrauð recipe), I didn't have an ice cream maker to make the ice cream.

Luckily, finding an alternative to an ice cream machine or manual churning was just as easy as finding an alternative to volcanic/geothermal energy for baking the bread.

I've used similar techniques to make different flavours of no-churn ice cream on this blog, but I believe this was the first recipe I posted.

I've since improved my recipe for no-churn rye bread ice cream / no-churn rúgbrauð ice cream by browning the butter just a little before using it to fry the bread. This makes the flavour even more insanely rich.

You can also watch me make this on YouTube:

Ingredients:

150g Icelandic rye bread, crumbled with your fingers
1 level tbsp butter
600ml double cream
1 tin condensed milk
1 tsp vanilla bean paste (or extract, but paste gives the better flavour)

Method:

1. Heat the butter in a frying pan on a medium heat until bubbling, and swirl until you start to smell a rich, nutty smell and the butter darkens a tiny bit.

2. Add the crumbled rye bread to the pan and fry for a couple of minutes, stirring often, until fragrant and a little crunchy. Break the chunks up into smaller crumbs, but leave a few slightly bigger ones in there.

3. Scoop onto a plate and leave to cool completely.

4. In a large bowl, whisk the cream until it forms soft peaks, then lightly whisk in the condensed milk and vanilla bean paste.

5. Fold in the fried rye bread crumbs, spoon into a freezer-proof container with a lid, close the lid, and freeze for about 4–5 hours or preferably overnight.

6. When you're ready to serve, take the container out of the freezer for about ten minutes to give the ice cream a chance to soften for easier scooping.

Enjoy, and have fun.