Baking
Ice Cream Base
Per quart: about 480 mL heavy cream, 240 mL whole milk, 150 g sugar, and 1.5 g salt. Churn after the mix is cold.
Reviewed September 2026
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Philadelphia-style mix for one US quart
Philadelphia-style ice cream is cream, milk, sugar, and salt. There are no egg yolks. Per quart of mix this calculator uses 480 mL heavy cream, 240 mL whole milk, 150 g sugar, and 1.5 g salt. Multiply those four numbers by the quarts you enter. Two quarts is 960 mL cream, 480 mL milk, 300 g sugar, and 3 g salt.
The dairy volumes are kitchen measures, not a claim that the churned pint in the freezer will weigh exactly 946 grams. Air beaten during churning (overrun) increases volume. A full canister of mix can overflow if you treat “one quart of mix” as “fill the machine to the brim.” Leave headspace the manufacturer specifies.
How to use the ice cream base calculator
Enter quarts of mix, not quarts of finished scoops you hope to serve after mix-ins. The default is 1. Stir sugar and salt into the cream and milk until the grains are gone. Chill the mix until it is refrigerator-cold, then churn. Philadelphia mix does not need a custard cook step because it has no yolks.
Use pasteurized milk and cream. FDA warns that unpasteurized dairy can carry pathogens, and it calls out homemade ice cream as a yearly Salmonella problem when recipes use raw eggs. This base skips eggs on purpose so a birthday pot does not start with uncooked yolks. If you later add a French/custard recipe, that is a different formula: cook the yolk base to 160 °F, or use pasteurized eggs or pasteurized egg product, and still start from pasteurized dairy.
Chill the cream carton in the coldest part of the fridge, not the door. FoodSafety.gov tells people to keep eggs in the main compartment for the same reason: door shelves swing through warmer air. A mix you assemble at 50 °F will take longer to drop to churning temperature than a mix you assemble at 38 °F. Plan that delay before the kids are standing next to the machine.
Scaling the four ingredients
cream_mL = quarts × 480. milk_mL = quarts × 240. sugar_g = quarts × 150. salt_g = quarts × 1.5. Half a quart is 240 mL cream, 120 mL milk, 75 g sugar, and 0.8 g salt (the display rounds 0.75 g). Weigh the sugar and the salt. A 150 g sugar line is about 3/4 cup of granulated sugar if you use a 200 g-per-cup kitchen density, but brands settle differently. USDA FoodData Central is the official place to look up a named sugar or cream and its household gram weight when you need a nutrient label, not when you are chasing this ratio.
Salt at 1.5 g per quart is a pinch that sharpens sweetness. It is not a brine. Do not scale it up because a pretzel mix-in “needs more salt.” Add salty mix-ins at the end of the churn and keep the base near 1.5 g/qt so the mix still freezes.
Philadelphia base scaled from the locked per-quart ratio
| Quarts of mix | Heavy cream | Whole milk | Sugar | Salt |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.5 | 240 mL | 120 mL | 75 g | 0.8 g |
| 1 (default) | 480 mL | 240 mL | 150 g | 1.5 g |
| 1.5 | 720 mL | 360 mL | 225 g | 2.3 g |
| 2 | 960 mL | 480 mL | 300 g | 3.0 g |
Why 150 grams of sugar is structural, not just sweet
Sugar lowers the freezing point of the mix so the result scoops instead of shattering. Cut the 150 g line in half and the machine will still spin, but the tub will freeze icy and hard. Raise it a lot and the mix may stay slushy in a home freezer. This calculator does not solve freezing-point depression from first principles. It holds one working ratio that home machines can churn after a thorough chill.
Liquid sweeteners (honey, syrup) add water and a different freezing curve. If you swap them, you have left this formula. Cocoa, fruit puree, and peanut butter also change water and fat. Add strong flavors after you can churn a plain quart cleanly.
Eggs, kids, and why this base stays yolk-free
FDA’s homemade ice cream page traces US outbreaks to raw or undercooked eggs in frozen desserts served at gatherings. From 1996 to 2000, CDC counted 17 outbreaks and more than 500 illnesses from that pathway. Infants, older adults, pregnant people, and anyone with a weak immune system face worse Salmonella disease. FDA’s egg-safety advice for recipes that stay raw at service is to use pasteurized shell eggs or pasteurized egg products, or to cook a custard to 160 °F. FDA and USDA still prefer a cooked base when the bowl will be served to high-risk guests, even if the eggs were pasteurized.
Philadelphia mix avoids that fork in the road. You still have to keep the dairy cold, wash the canister the way you wash any raw-milk tool, and skip tasting a custard you decided to add later before it hits 160 °F. FoodSafety.gov’s clean/separate/cook/chill steps apply to scoopers, mix-in bowls, and the egg carton you did not use.
Chill the mix, then treat leftovers like leftovers
Churn only a mix that has spent hours in the refrigerator. Warm mix foams poorly and melts in the bowl. After churning, the texture is soft-serve. Freeze in a shallow container if you want firmer scoops the next day. FSIS leftover rules still apply to a dairy dessert sitting out at a party: 2 hours at room temperature, 1 hour if the air is above 90 °F, then refrigerate or discard. Re-hardening a melted tub in the freezer does not undo time in the danger zone.
Do not let kids lick the dasher and then drop it back into a tub you plan to store for a week. That is a second contamination step, not a charm. Portion what you will eat, then cover the rest.
Mix-ins, labels, and what the sugar line does not include
The 150 g is only the base sugar. Cookies, caramel, and fudge sauce are extra. If the point of the party is watching added sugar, weigh those mix-ins and use the label grams, then the teaspoons tool on this site. A quart of this base already contains 150 g of sucrose before the first brownie bit.
Alcohol in a splash lowers the freezing point further. A tablespoon of vanilla extract is fine. A pour of leftover wine is how a home freezer ends up with soup. Add mix-ins in the last minute of churning so they stay in pieces.
Pre-chill the machine bowl the way the manual says, often overnight. A lukewarm canister fights the 150 g sugar’s job and leaves large ice crystals. That is a texture failure, not a food-safety pass. Safety still lives in pasteurized dairy, a clean dasher, and the leftover clock after you scoop.
What this calculator includes versus what you still add by hand
| Item | In the formula? | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Heavy cream 480 mL/qt | Yes | Use pasteurized cream |
| Whole milk 240 mL/qt | Yes | Use pasteurized milk |
| Granulated sugar 150 g/qt | Yes | Weigh it |
| Salt 1.5 g/qt | Yes | Weigh it |
| Egg yolks | No | That is a French/custard base; cook to 160 °F or use pasteurized eggs |
| Cookies, fruit, sauce | No | Add at the end; they add sugar the 150 g line does not see |
Accuracy limits
“Quart” here is the US liquid quart (946 mL), not an imperial quart and not a dry quart. Machine bowls marked in liters will not match 1:1. 0.95 L of mix is close to one US quart.
Fat level in “heavy cream” varies by carton. FoodData Central lists many cream entries. A lighter cream makes a icier body. Non-dairy milks are not this formula. The salt line is not a sodium-in-salt nutrition converter.
The calculator will not pasteurize anything. It will not tell you the mix is safe because it lacks eggs. Cold storage and pasteurized dairy still matter.
A “quart” canister that is already half full of leftover chocolate mix is not a clean quart. Wash and dry the bowl. Residual old mix is a second dairy leftover sitting on the 3-to-4-day clock, and it throws the 480/240/150/1.5 ratio off. FSIS egg-product plants pasteurize liquid eggs for commercial ice cream. Your countertop machine does not.
If a child has a milk allergy, this base is still milk and cream. The salt and sugar lines do not make it dairy-free. Use a recipe built for that restriction instead of deleting the milk field and hoping the cream is enough.
How it works
No eggs in this base. Custard (French) ice cream adds yolks and a cook step. Sugar lowers freezing point; too little sugar freezes icy.
Frequently asked questions
Kid-safe mix-ins?
Wait until the last minute of churning. Check labels for added sugar if that is the point of the party.
Related calculators
References
- NIST. SI Units - Mass
- USDA ARS. FoodData Central
- FDA. Enjoying Homemade Ice Cream without the Risk of Salmonella Infection
- FDA. What You Need to Know About Egg Safety
- FDA. The Dangers of Raw Milk
- FoodSafety.gov. 4 Steps to Food Safety
- USDA FSIS. Leftovers and Food Safety
- USDA FSIS. Egg Products and Food Safety
Kitchen tools are estimates for home cooking. Nutrition tools are screening aids, not a diagnosis. They are not a substitute for a pediatrician or registered dietitian. Food-safety temperatures follow USDA FSIS. Do not reuse leftover meat brine.