Ice Cream Bread Is The Easy Vintage Dessert That's Totally Worth Making

If you've never heard of ice cream bread before, the name certainly catches your attention right away. We all know what an ice cream sandwich is, but ice cream bread? It's not quite the same thing. Instead, it's a remarkably simple dessert that has only two ingredients. If you're looking to try something new that's also relatively fast and fun, all you need is self-rising flour and melted ice cream.

You can fill a loaf pan with ice cream bread batter using just two cups of melted ice cream and 1 ½ cups of self-rising flour. Don't have self-rising flour? No problem! Add 2 ¼ teaspoons of baking powder and ⅜ teaspoon of salt to 1 ½ cups of regular flour instead. As for ice cream flavors, vanilla ice cream is the go-to option for a simple bread, but you can use any flavor you like. Just be aware that it will probably not come out nearly as sweet as you think. If you're using a specific ice cream variety, you may want to enhance its taste with some add-ins. You can add chocolate chips, almonds, strawberries, or whatever works best with the ice cream you chose.

You need to mix the flour until it's blended into the melted ice cream and no visible streaks or clumps of dry flour remain. Then bake for at least 35 minutes in an oven preheated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Check the center to make sure it's fully baked, and that's it. It makes a simple, light loaf reminiscent of a pound cake with a not-too-sweet flavor.

TikToker B. Dylan Hollis had a video demonstrating ice cream bread that went viral back in 2022. In it, he uses a recipe from a 1978 cookbook, so this is not a recent idea. We even published a recipe in 2015. There are recipes for a Ben & Jerry's ice cream bread that date back to 2014. A similar recipe also had a viral moment in 2013 and was shared around social media. As the saying goes, everything old is new again, and it seems like ice cream bread keeps having its moment.

One of the earliest published recipes online only dates back to 2011. There is even an archived one from 2010, but nothing much older that can be easily tracked down. So while this recipe seems to have come from the 1970s, there's very little published record of it posted online. That means we may never know who came up with it to begin with, but many people are happy it exists if the feedback online is any indication.

One thing to keep in mind is that if you use ice cream with mix-ins like nuts or chocolate chunks, they may settle toward the bottom if you let the batter rest too long. Likewise, if your ice cream has fudge swirls, cherries or other fruit, or ribbons of peanut butter, the moisture content could slightly alter the texture of the cake when it's done baking. On the bright side, all of your experiments will still probably be delicious.