Super Easy Tablet Ice-Cream Recipe - Scottish Scran (2024)

Tablet Ice-cream. Or would it be Tablet Ice Cream? Either way, we’re pretty sure this recipe doesn’t really require much more introduction or explanation than that!

Scottish Tablet is a melt-in-your-mouth sweet confection that’s a bit like fudge but harder. It was one of the first traditional recipes that we made for Scottish Scran, and we’ve since made a Tablet Cheesecake too, but making a Tablet Ice-Cream has been on our list for a while too!

Making ice-cream sounds difficult, and there’s no denying it can be. The easiest way to make traditional ice-cream is with an ice-cream machine that churns it for you, which is an essential part of the ice-cream making process.

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How to make no-churn ice-cream

Since not everyone has or wants to invest in an ice-cream maker we wanted to make a more accessible ice-cream recipe and after a bit of research, we stumbled upon “no-churn” ice-cream. It’s deliciously creamy and not at all icy, and it’s made with just TWO ingredients.

Yes, you read that right. We weren’t joking when we called this recipe “super easy”. Once you make the ice-cream you can add whatever flavour you like, which in our case, is tasty chunks of tablet and a little vanilla.

We used tablet from our own recipe which you can find here. This recipe uses around a third of the tablet so you’ll have some leftover too. Obviously we’re biased and think our family recipe tastes the best, but you can, of course, use a shop-bought tablet to speed up the process. If you can’t find tablet then a hard fudge would also work.

This recipe is super fast to make and if you want to serve it for dessert to guests then don’t tell anyone it’s not “real” ice-cream, we doubt they’ll actually notice (let us know!).

You can keep it for months in the freezer, the main issue is making sure it’s well covered so it doesn’t turn icy on the top. However, chances are it won’t last that long!

Things you’ll need to make Tablet Ice-Cream

• Electric Hand Mixer
• Large Bowl
• Loaf tin or another similar container to freeze it in. It doesn’t have to have a lid but it’s useful.

Ingredients for Tablet Ice-Cream

• 600ml double cream (2.5 cups heavy cream)
• 1 x 397g tin of sweetened condensed milk (14oz can)
• 1 tsp vanilla essence (optional)
• 250g Scottish Tablet (around 2 cups)

How to make Tablet Ice-Cream – Step by step method

If you’re making your own tablet then you can follow our traditional tablet recipe here. Make it with enough time for it to cool fully, ideally the day before. Just make sure you don’t eat it all before you get to making the ice-cream!

For the ice-cream, put the cream and condensed milk together in a large bowl. Add in the vanilla essence (if you’re using it, it helps to give the ice-cream itself a little flavour but it’s not 100% necessary).

Use an electric beater to whisk the mixture until it’s really thick, with peaks forming when you remove the beater.

Break the tablet up into chunks. We used chunks around 1 centimetre or a little less. You should be able to do this (carefully) with a sharp knife. Around 250 grams is plenty to have a bit of tablet in each bite, you can, of course, add as much or as little as you like to get your perfect flavour.

Gently fold the tablet into the cream mixture, try to keep as much air in as possible by not overbeating the mix.

Pour the mixture into the loaf tin, cover with cling film, and put in the freezer for a minimum of 5 hours. You can then use an ice-cream scoop or large spoon to serve. No-churn ice-cream is known to melt a little faster than traditional ice-cream but we tested it and didn’t find it was a problem. In any case, it turns back into a cream which is still perfectly edible! If anything we had to leave it for 5 minutes before serving to allow it to soften a little.

Variations

As with many of our recipes, we like to give you options. The main variations to this tablet ice-cream recipe would be using more or less tablet, and vanilla essence. As with many Scottish recipes, a shot of whisky wouldn’t go amiss either.

We plan on trying this with some other Scottish desserts like Cranachan or Caledonian Cream but let us know if you try something too!