Sugar Free Ice Cream

One of my favourite desserts is without question ice cream, so when I gave up sugar, the thought of never sitting down to couple of scoops of this delicious treat was horrifying.

Whenever we would go out to dinner in the past, no matter what fancy desserts were on the menu, the stickiest of sticky date puddings, the smoothest of creme brulees, I would always ask for just a couple scoops of ice cream, whether it was on the menu or not.

Sadly, most ice-creams are at least 25% sugar and so are permanently off the shopping list.

All is not lost.

The bad component of refined sugar, honey, fruit and most other sweet options is the Fructose. Sugar is 50% Fructose and 50% Glucose. Our body can tolerate and process glucose without spiking blood sugar or affecting insulin levels the way that fructose does. In reality fructose is our major enemy.

So all we need to do is replace the sugar with an acceptable alternative, make our own ice cream and we are back in business.

We can make our own ice cream using several sweetener options. My go to options are Lakanto (monk fruit sugar), dextrose or xylitol. I also like to add a small amount of glucose syrup to improve the finish.

Sugar Free Ice Cream Base

All ice cream starts with a simple custard base which you can then add things to like cocoa powder for chocolate ice cream or peppermint essence and green food colouring for mint (minus the choc chips)

• Keto / Sugar Free Ice Cream Base
  • 2 Cups Cream (pouring / whipping / whatever you have)
  • 1 Cup Milk
  • 1 teaspoon Vanilla Essence
  • 1/4 cup glucose syrup (optional)
  • 6 egg yolks
  • 1 Cup Dextrose or Lakanto or Xylitol or your go-to sweetener

Cooking Instructions:

1. Put the milk, vanilla and cream into a heavy bottomed saucepan and heat on medium until just about to boil.
2. Stir in the glucose syrup until it disappears
3. While the cream is heating, put the egg yolks, dextrose (or other sweetener) into a large bowl and whisk until the dextrose has dissolved. At this point you can add flavourings to the bowl if you want anything other than vanilla (see below)
4. Gradually whisk in the heated cream mix to the bowl until fully combined.
5. Taste the mix to see if it needs more sweetener (this is personal preference)
6. Pour the mix back into a clean saucepan and cook for 8 minutes or until the mix starts to thicken enough that when you dip a spoon in it, it coats the spoon without running straight off (light custard)
7. Pour the custard back through a strainer or sieve into a clean bowl and allow to cool. You can put the bowl in the fridge or freezer to cool if you are impatient like me.
8. Once cool, churn in an ice-cream maker until it holds peaks like a machine soft serve ice cream, transfer to a sealable container and put in the freezer.
9. If you don’t have an ice cream maker machine, place in a plastic container and put it in the freezer, periodically whisk with a fork until you get what you recognise as ice cream. There are plenty of Youtube videos on making ice-cream without a machine.

Flavouring Sugar Free Ice Cream

Flavouring your plain vanilla ice cream is super simple. You add your desired flavouring in step 3 above.

• Chocolate – add 1/4 cup cacao or cocoa powder
• Mint no choc chip – add peppermint essence to taste and a few drops of green food colouring if you want that authentic mint look. I’ve heard a rumour that you can get sugar free choc chips nowadays. If you can find some, throw in a handful into the churning ice cream machine.
• Rum and no raisin – Add rum essence – avoid raisins. All dried fruit is just packed with sugar,

You get the picture, whatever takes your fancy, just add liquid or powder flavourings in prior to churning, or hard ingredients like nuts during churning.

I’m so grateful for discovering this method of keeping ice cream in my sugar free life.

We keep chickens on the farm, so always have an over supply of eggs. This is a great way to make sure they don’t go to waste.

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