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Homemade Root Beer Float Ice Cream tastes just like a brown cow with 3 simple ingredients. This is my new favorite sherbet recipe, and it’s quick and easy to make!

Penn State is where Ben & Jerry learned to make ice cream, and Penn State’s Creamery ice cream is legendary.

When I was in college there, I used to bring homemade Creamery ice cream to Old Grandma when I visited. The Creamery on campus will pack your ice cream in dry ice, and it stays nice and solidly frozen until you get where you’re going, up to 3 hours.

Our two favorite kinds of ice cream were coconut chip and brown cow. Coconut chip was coconut ice cream with chocolate chips in it, and brown cow was root beer and vanilla ice creams swirled together.

I was thinking about brown cow ice cream when I made this homemade version.

When I explained my idea for root beer float ice cream to Joe, he jumped up and ran to Walmart to get a bottle of root beer right then. He loves a good root beer float, and he loves ice cream, and he was excited to put them together.

The finished ice cream was delicious, just the right combination of root beer and milk. We’ve since done the same thing with orange pop, too, and we have plans for Mountain Dew ice cream and Dr. Pepper ice cream.

We don’t drink pop at home generally, so we’ve been buying it special just for this desert. When it’s hot outside, a light ice cream is a lovely way to end our dinner. It’s not terribly healthy, but if you just have a little bit, it’s not terribly unhealthy, either.

How to make homemade root beer float ice cream

Prepare your ice cream maker ahead of time. Mine has to freeze for 24 hours prior to use, so I don’t start the next step until it’s well frozen.
When you’re ready to make the ice cream, mix all three ingredients in a bowl. Don’t try to mix them in the ice cream maker like poor Joe did the first time. That won’t work, and you will end up with chunks of frozen whatever you put in first mixed up in your finished ice cream. Or else you won’t be able to put the ice cream maker together because the stuff froze in the bottom. Not that I know that first-hand or anything. {ahem} Mix the ingredients in a bowl.
Pour the mixture into your prepared ice cream maker. If you haven’t prepared your ice cream maker, you’re probably going to have to pour the mixture into a jar and refrigerate it until tomorrow. As I said above, my ice cream maker has to freeze for 24 hours before I can use it.
Let the ice cream machine work for 20-30 minutes, or until it shuts itself off or the ice cream is frozen. Our ice cream machine never quite freezes the ice cream, so we take it out of the machine and put it into the freezer for an hour or two.
Scoop out the ice cream and serve.