How our ice cream is made
Hand-crafted ice cream: it's all in the wrist. Here is what happens before a tub reaches your freezer.
Updated October 2026: Step-by-step process, comparison table and ingredient notes added by the Wooden Spoon team.
You see the words "craft" and "hand-crafted" used a lot. At Wooden Spoon it means something specific: we make our ice cream by hand, starting on the stove, in small batches. Here is the process from milk to tub.
1. Cook the custard
Every batch starts as a custard base made from organic New Zealand milk and cream with sugar. We cook it over a flame until it is just right, rather than pouring a ready-made mix into a machine. This is the step most commercial ice creams skip, and it is the one that makes the biggest difference to texture.
2. Cool quickly, then age
Once cooked, the custard is cooled rapidly and then left to age. Aging gives the ingredients time to settle and bind, which helps the finished ice cream stay smooth and scoopable instead of icy.
3. Slow-churn
We churn the aged base slowly, so the ice cream ends up with a rich, creamy texture. Churning always adds some air; how much is added has a big effect on how dense and rich ice cream tastes, and on how quickly it melts on the spoon. Our journal explains more about what makes small-batch ice cream different.
4. Make the mix-ins from scratch
The custard may be the main component, but we take the same care over everything that goes into it:
- Coffee: for our Vietnamese coffee ice cream, the coffee is cold-brewed for at least 24 hours before it meets the custard.
- Caramel and hokey pokey: for Smokey Pokey we cook sugar until it is coppery and nutty, and make the hokey pokey pieces ourselves.
- Crusts and crumbs: pie crusts and crumbles are rolled and baked in our kitchen until golden.
- Chocolate: the slivers in Mint Chip are melted and set the way we like them.
5. Fill, freeze and label
Finished ice cream is layered with its swirls and pieces, packed into tubs and hardened in the freezer. Every flavour's ingredients and allergens are also listed on our ingredients page.
Cooked custard vs ready-made mix
| Step | Our way | Typical mass-made ice cream |
|---|---|---|
| Base | Custard cooked from scratch | Pre-made liquid or powder mix |
| Dairy | Organic NZ milk and cream | Varies by brand |
| Mix-ins | Made in our kitchen | Bought in ready-made |
| Batch size | Small, by hand | Large, continuous production |
Testing new ideas
New flavours start as kitchen experiments. Over the years we have run tasting trials with ice cream lovers (we called it WS Labs), and flavours like Birthday Cake, Spiced Hot Chocolate and Hot Fudge Sundae came out of that testing. See what made the cut on our flavours page and the limited edition archive.