Cinnamon Toast Crunch Ice Cream

This cinnamon toast crunch ice cream has all the great flavors of a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal all wrapped up in creamy cinnamon ice cream with a delicious cinnamon graham swirl.

If you love Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cereal as much as my family does, then you will love this cinnamon toast crunch ice cream too. It’s my favorite breakfast cereal, and using it to make ice cream is the best idea I’ve ever had.

It’s a rich and creamy cinnamon and vanilla custard based ice cream that is made with cereal milk (made from Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cereal of course). 

It seems complicated at first, but I promise it’s not at all – just a little time consuming. But the results are beyond worth the time it takes to make this ice cream. By the way, I’ve got a tip below on how to make this ice cream egg free, so if that part stresses you out, you can just skip the eggs anyway! 

This recipe takes several hours to make from start to finish. You have to soak the cereal for at least 2 hours. You have to chill the custard for a couple hours. You have to churn the ice cream, and then freeze it to make it hard and scoopable – that might be 10 to 24 hours, depending on how long you let each of the steps set. But like I said, it is worth it. And the active time for you is much less than that, maybe 30 minutes. 

Ingredients Needed:

This is a quick overview of the ingredients you’ll need for this Cinnamon Toast Crunch Ice Cream recipe. Specific measurements and full recipe instructions are in the printable recipe card below.

• whole milk – the highest fat milk is best to keep this ice cream creamy
• heavy cream – to add fat and creaminess to this ice cream
• cinnamon toast crunch cereal
• egg yolks – help bind the ice cream and make it extra rich and creamy
• granulated sugar – this helps sweeten the ice cream base
• vanilla extract – this adds a nice light vanilla flavor to the ice cream base
• ground cinnamon – this adds an additional cinnamon flavor to the ice cream in addition to the cinnamon toast crunch cereal milk
• sea salt – to balance the sweetness of the ice cream
• brown sugar – to add sweetness to the cinnamon toast crunch crumble
• butter – to help hold the cinnamon toast crunch crumble together

How to make Cinnamon Toast Crunch Ice Cream?

1. Add some of the cereal to a large bowl with the milk and let it chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours, up to overnight. Strain the cereal milk through a strainer to get out all the cereal pieces and discard those.
2. In a large sauce pan, combine the cereal milk, and cream and heat it over medium just until the mixture starts to bubble.
3. In a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks and the sugar. Slowly pour about 1/2 cup of the hot cream mixture into the egg yolks, whisking them together quickly. Add in another 1/2 cup, then another 1/2 cup to the mixture. 
4. Pour the cream and egg mixture back into the pan and continue to let it heat for a few minutes until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a metal spoon. 
5. Pour it through a strainer out into a bowl (the previous bowl you used for the egg is fine). And stir in the vanilla extract, cinnamon, and salt.
6. Then add some ice to another large bowl and put the custard bowl over the bowl of ice to let it start to chill for about 10 minutes, while stirring occasionally. Cover the custard and place it in the fridge to chill for at least 2 hours.
7. Pulse some of your cereal pieces into a fine crumb and then stir them into a bowl with brown sugar and melted butter. 
8. When you’re ready to churn the ice cream, turn on the ice cream maker and pour the custard into the ice cream maker bowl and let it run until it starts to thicken nicely. Add some of the cinnamon toast crumble to the churning ice cream to mix through.
9. Then scoop some of the ice cream into a pan, topped with the cereal crumble, and repeat with more ice cream, more cereal swirl, etc, until it’s all in the pan.
10. Put it in the freezer to chill for at least 6 hours, but I like to freeze mine overnight so it gets super thick like you’d get from the store. Then scoop it up and enjoy. 

Tips and Tricks:

• I say this every time, but don’t forget to pre-freeze your ice cream machine bowl. Mine takes at least 12 hours to be frozen solid so it will churn my ice cream. Leave it in your freezer to use whenever you’re ready if you have room.
• If you want your cinnamon graham swirl to be chunky pieces instead of a smoother swirl, you can just crush the pieces up in a bowl or zip top baggy instead of pulsing them to crumbs.
• Sprinkle some extra cinnamon toast crunch cereal pieces on top of your ice cream bowl for an extra crunch when you’re enjoying your bowl of homemade ice cream.
• This ice cream can be stored in an airtight ice cream container for about 3 weeks. Make sure to keep it covered tightly to prevent freezer burn as much as possible. 

Can you make this ice cream without the eggs?

If you want to skip the eggs and cooking you can actually just leave them out, and mix the cream, cereal milk, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and salt in a large bowl. Then you can skip the chilling process and pour that mixture straight into the ice cream maker, and go from there.

This cinnamon toast crunch ice cream is a delicious cinnamon ice cream, with a delicious swirl of crunchy cinnamon cereal in practically every bite. It’s a must make for cinnamon lovers, and one of my new favorite ice cream flavors.

More custard recipes:

• Butter Pecan Ice Cream
• Brownie Ice Cream
• Caramel Pecan Ice Cream

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