The 13 Best Ice Cream Cookbooks for Delicious Frozen Desserts

Hello, My Name Is Ice Cream

$26 $20 at Amazon $20 at Target $22 at Walmart

Making ice cream that tastes as good as the scoop-shop stuff is part culinary art and part biochemical science. Dana Cree, a Chicago-based pastry chef who opened the ice cream shop Pretty Cool, has mastered both. Her cookbook spares no detail about the hows and whys of each step in the process, so you can feel confident using the book's recipes — or using its principles to create your own original flavors.

It's also an industry favorite: “Hello, My Name Is Ice Cream is a scientific but super-manageable and understandable approach to all different kinds of ice creams, with various options for bases, stabilizers, mix-ins, etc.," says Caroline Schiff, a James Beard Award finalist for best pastry chef and a Food & Wine Best New Chef for 2022. "I would recommend this book to beginners and professionals alike because of how it's organized and broken down."

Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home

$27 $22 at Amazon View on Barnesandnoble.com

From a single stand in 2002 in Columbus, Ohio, Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams has expanded into a nationally famous brand, with pints available at scoop shops and grocery stores around the country. Jeni's is known for unexpected flavor combinations (two of its most famous are chocolate and Cayenne pepper and goat cheese with roasted cherries), and in this book, Jeni herself spills all her secrets. She learned to make ice cream as a college student with a $50 machine, so rest assured you can create frozen masterpieces no matter your skill level or budget.

The book includes 100 recipes for ice creams, yogurts, and sorbets, plus accoutrements for sundaes and cookie sandwiches. But if you can’t get enough of Jeni’s, check out follow-up title: Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream Desserts. It uses homemade or store-bought ice creams as the base for all kinds of sundaes, floats, cobblers, and even hot baked goods.

Wanderlust Creamery Presents: The World of Ice Cream

$30 $18 at Amazon

If you can think of a food, Adrienne Borlongan has probably tried to make it into ice cream. Her Wanderlust Creamery in Los Angeles has lengthy seasonal and year-round menus with a global influence. Flavors at the shops (and in the book) include everything from Icelandic rye bread to Filipino halo halo. Many of these recipes are pretty complex, but they're showstoppers you'll never forget. One personal favorite is the Elote ice cream bars: sweet corn ice cream (shaped like ears of corn) on a stick, coated with a butter-lime-white chocolate shell, then topped with Parmesan-infused chocolate flakes, habanero sugar sprinkles, and lime zest.

Big Gay Ice Cream: Saucy Stories & Frozen Treats

$25 $7 at Amazon $25 at Barnesandnoble.com View on Abebooks.com

Big Gay Ice Cream got its start as a “no bad vibes” food truck in New York City, and this cookbook reflects the shop's cheeky attitude throughout. It's organized like a high school yearbook, starting with "Freshman Year" and a series of unexpected ways to doctor up store-bought ice cream (think chocolate with cheddar cheese and cherries, or strawberry with jalapeño slices). Next, you'll make your own sauces and toppings, work through sundaes and floats, and finally advance to "Senior Year": freezing ice cream from scratch. The book is full of stories, photos, and lots of campy fun, in addition to recipes for some of BGIC's best-loved treats, including the famous Salty Pimp, a dulce de leche–filled cone topped with salted vanilla ice cream and dipped in chocolate.

Humphry Slocombe Ice Cream Book

$20 $18 at Amazon

"I love visiting Humphry Slocombe when I'm in San Francisco, but in the last few years, my trips aren't frequent enough to sate my craving for their delectable creative flavors," says associate editorial director Chandra Ram. Cinnamon roll and Vietnamese coffee are two of her favorites, but her highest praise goes to Secret Breakfast, with bourbon and cornflake cookies. "It owns most of the frozen portion of my heart and was my motivation to buy this book. Now I can make Secret Breakfast at home, and keep it as a regular part of my ice cream rotation."

Gelupo Gelato

$18 at Amazon $17 at Walmart $18 at Barnesandnoble.com

Gelupo is on of London's finest spots to get gelato, and this book is a great guide to ice cream's softer, denser, Italian cousin. It includes recipes for classics like fior di latte and stracciatella as well as more adventurous flavors: pear-blackberry crumble, strawberry-pink peppercorn, and a purely English chocolate, tea, and biscuits are just a few of the tasty options. On top of that, you'll find dairy-free granitas and recipes for a gelateria's worth of fixings including brioche buns and homemade cones.

Food52 Ice Cream and Friends

$23 $20 at Amazon $19 at Walmart $24 at Food52

Food52 may now be one of our favorite places to shop for gorgeous home goods and kitchenware, but it got its start as a community-sourced recipe website. In this book, the editors compiled 60 of the best and most reliable frozen treats from the archive. There's a global influence of flavors, plenty of dairy-free sorbets and granitas, and more complex desserts like old-school baked Alaska and a wild ice cream sandwich using brownie batter baked atop Saltine crackers. It's a great choice if you want to try a little bit of everything in your ice cream creations.

The Perfect Scoop

$26 $18 at Amazon $18 at Target $18 at Walmart

American-born, Paris-based chef and writer David Leibovitz was one of the internet's original food bloggers: He's been delivering beautifully photographed recipes and postcards of French life since 1999. He's a meticulous tester whose thorough directions will never steer you wrong. We love the fancy flavor combinations in The Perfect Scoop — don't miss the labneh ice cream with pistachio-sesame brittle — but it's also become an industry-standard reference for basic techniques and procedures. This 2018 updated edition even adds frozen cocktails, including a Negroni slush and a spritz sorbet.

Mexican Ice Cream

$22 $19 at Amazon $19 at Walmart $22 at Barnesandnoble.com

Chef Fany Gerson does it all: She has a restaurant, doughnut shop, and ice cream parlor in New York, each dedicated to the dishes and flavors of her native Mexico. But ice cream is where her original passion lies, and this book shows it. It gives you a taste of the many regional specialties from around the country, like a Oaxacan lime sorbet, a prickly pear ice cream, and a rice- and almond-based treat inspired by horchata. For further cooling creations, you can also check out Gerson's Paletas, which has recipes for ice cream bars, shaved ice, aguas frescas, and more.

N’Ice Cream

$28 $15 at Amazon $19 at Walmart

Who says you need cream to make ice cream? This entirely vegan cookbook uses an array of plant-based bases — coconut water, avocado, banana, nut butters, and more — to make satisfyingly indulgent treats in all kinds of flavors. As an extra bonus, you can make all of these recipes without an ice cream maker.

Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book

$13 $9 at Amazon $9 at Target $13 at Barnesandnoble.com

Yes, this book is by that Ben and Jerry. Published in 1987, this book gives you a look at the early days of the ice cream juggernaut, and it's a great gift for any fan of Cherry Garcia, Chunky Monkey, Phish Food, or the rest of the Ben & Jerry's lineup. It may not be as deep a dive into the science and technique of ice cream as some others on our list, but it will give you the keys to the factory, with recipes for 11 of the brand's most popular flavors. There are dozens of other flavors, too, along with baked goods, sundaes, and more.

Coolhaus Ice Cream Book

$25 $2 at Amazon

The founders of Los Angeles' Coolhaus are architecture geeks, and their brand specializes in ice cream sandwiches. This book gives you their plans to build such tasty, punny creations as the Frank Behry (strawberry gelato with Snickerdoodle cookies) and the I. M. Pei-nut Butter (peanut butter ice cream with double chocolate cookies). There are separate sections for ice cream and cookies, which you can mix and match to make your own unique creations.

Sweet Cream and Sugar Cones

$25 $19 at Amazon $25 at Barnesandnoble.com

First opened in 1940 as a neighborhood grocery store, San Francisco's Bi-Rite Market has evolved into a gourmet paradise, with multiple locations offering high-end meat, produce, cheese, and wine. But it's Bi-Rite's house-made ice cream that's probably why it's most famous, and this book lets you bring its Northern California flavor home. The recipes here are largely traditional — vanilla, caramel, and chocolate each merit an entire chapter — but they're done beautifully.