SUGAR-FREE ICE CREAM PERFECTION!

PERFECT VANILLA ICE CREAM

Sugar-free ice cream is hard; not just hard to make, but literally hard. I got a Breville ice cream maker for my birthday on September 2nd. I love its convenience and speed, but it has taken me this long to perfect a recipe using it. I started with my favorite flavor: custard-based, plain vanilla, which presents the biggest challenge since there’s nothing to hide an off taste or imperfect texture. If I could get that right, the rest would be easy. I had some additional problems to work around that I will explain in the NOTES below, but I finally have a winner! It produces ice cream with a lovely, smooth mouth feel and scoop-able consistency straight out of the freezer.

Ingredients:
5 chicken egg yolks or 3 duck egg yolks (save the whites for making bread or meringue)
½ cup Allulose* sweetener
3 tablespoons xylitol* OR an oligofructose-based sweetener* OR more Allulose
1 cup water
2 tablespoons powdered collagen* from  pasture-raised beef, such as Great Lakes or Bulletproof brand
Liquid sweetener to taste, if needed.
1 ounce soft goat cheese (the kind that comes in a log; Costco has a good price) OR cream cheese
2 cups heavy cream, Jersey* if possible
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar-free vanilla extract

Directions:
Place a container in the freezer to use to store the finished ice cream.

Beat egg yolks in a heat-resistant bowl with Allulose and xylitol, if using, until thick. Bring water to a simmer. Whisk about ½ of water into egg yolk mixture..

Pour egg yolk mixture into pan with remaining water and cook and stir over low heat for about 4 or 5 minutes or until eggs reach 160% F on a cooking thermometer, the temperature that will kill Salmonella according to www.foodsafety.com.  (The old trick of cooking a custard until it leaves a coating on the back of a metal spoon that holds a track when you drag a finger over it, doesn’t seem to work on this–mine leaves a track from the beginning!)

Add soft cheese to custard and stir until melted. Sprinkle collagen powder over custard and stir until smooth and free of lumps. Let mixture cool for a few minutes and gently stir in cream, salt, and vanilla. Taste mixture and add a few drops of liquid sweetener if it is not sweet enough, keeping in mind that it will taste less sweet when it is frozen.

Chill mixture in refrigerator until cold. Place in ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer’s directions.

Scrape ice cream into chilled container. (A silicone basting brush is useful for getting the ice cream off the dasher.) Cover with a layer of parchment paper and then a sheet of aluminum foil. Freeze for an hour for firmer ice cream. Ice cream should be scoop-able straight out of the freezer, but can be stored in the refrigerator for a few minutes to soften up, if desired.

Recipe makes about one quart or 8 servings of ½ cup each.

Nutrition Data: Calories: 264, Protein: 7 g; Fat: 25.9 g; Total Carbs; 1.9 g: Fiber: 0; Net Carbs: 1.9 g 
Allulose and sweeteners are not included in nutrition data. They have little, if any, effect. 

PERFECT ICE CREAM CONE

PERFECT ICE CREAM CONES
Ice cream cones are back! Some ready-made, gluten-free cones are very low in carbs and they taste exactly like the old, high-carb versions with gluten.. (I’m talking about the ones that look like the picture, not the pointed, sugar cones.) They only have 2 carbs each, but you can make them even lower if you don’t eat the bottom of the cone. It is reinforced with cross bars for stability, which prevents the ice cream from going all the way down so there’s no point in eating that part anyway. Toss the last 1/2-inch of the cone and you will cut the carbs by one-third. The part you eat will have only 1.3 grams.

There may be other brands with similar carb counts, but the one I bought was called Let’s Do…Gluten Free Ice Cream Cones.

NOTES:*
Allulose: (D-ribo-2-hexulose, C6H12O6) is a low-calorie and low-carb monosaccharide sugar. It is found naturally in small quantities in some fruits and vegetables but is now being made from fermented non-GMO corn sugar. It is generally recognized as safe (GRAS) and is FDA approved for use in a wide variety of products. A study cited by the manufacturer, Tate & Lyle, showed that it does not spike blood glucose…“When 25 g of psicose were ingested compared to 25 g of sucrose, psicose did not raise blood sugar levels above the baseline for two hours after ingestion.”

Allulose is only 70% as sweet as sugar and it browns a little faster. Although the label says Allulose has 3 grams of carbs per teaspoon (regular sugar has 4 grams) it is absorbed, but not metabolized and then almost totally excreted. Since it is not fermented in the gut, it cannot cause digestive distress like some sugar substitutes. Beneficial side effects include weight loss and better hypoglycemic control.

I bit the bullet and ordered a large container from Keystone Pantry on Amazon, where it was $35.99 for three pounds (it’s the same price at Walmart). If you buy 2 canisters, the price is lower, at $59.99, so not too bad for a “rare” sugar. (The worst deal is the 7-ounce bottle from All-U-Lose (get it?) at $12.88 on Amazon.)

Allulose is said to taste exactly like sugar, but it is only 70 as sweet as regular sugar. Just a little of another sweetener will correct the problem. If it tastes fine to you, just use ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons of Allulose. If not, use ½ cup of Allulose and 2 tablespoons of a second sweetener. Below are some options:
Xylitol is a sugar alcohol that tastes good and has health benefits for bones and teeth. It can cause digestive upset for those who are sensitive, so some of us can’t use very much. Just a little works wonders in this recipe..
Oligofructose is the base for Just Like Sugar and Sweet Perfection, two good, probiotic sugar substitutes made from sweet fibers that also should help.
Another option is LC-Foods Sweet, a mixture of many different sweeteners that has a nice clean taste.

Why Jersey Cream?
Two of the most common food allergens are dairy and eggs. After my meltdown in 2013, I discovered that I was allergic to both, in addition to a lot of other things.That story is here. After some research and a lot of trial and error, I learned that I was only allergic to one kind of milk protein, called A1 beta casein. Older breeds of cows, such as Jersey and Guernsey, traditionally produce A2 milk. Unfortunately, most of the milk from modern dairy cows comes from A1 Holsteins because they are more productive and are therefore more profitable. The milk from goats, sheep, camels, buffalo, yaks, and donkeys are also mostly A2, so we have other options for cheese, yogurt, and butter, but I don’t currently have access to cream from any of those sources. Luckily, I can buy A2 cream from Jersey cows that comes from two local dairies. It is sold in glass bottles with a hefty deposit. It is wonderful, rich cream that has such a high fat content that it turns to butter in the blink of an eye. I strained the custard after cooking and still got little lumps of pure butter in the finished ice cream. That is why my recipe now says to cook the custard without the cream and gently stir it in just before freezing.

For more information on dairy allergies, go to: http://fedup.com.au/factsheets/additive-and-natural-chemical-factsheets/a2-milk

Eggs: duck eggs are now available at a few stores near me and they make a very rich, golden ice cream. I’m still avoiding all things chicken: meat, eggs, broth, and feathers, but I can eat quail eggs and duck eggs. Quail eggs are impossible to separate, so duck eggs it is!

I don’t normally worry about eating raw eggs, but I’m now taking a medication (hydro-cortisone) that puts me in the high-risk category for food-borne toxins. A custard base needs to be heated to 160% F to kill off any Samonella. I really prefer the taste of the cooked custard in this recipe anyway, so I would do it whether I needed to or not.

Collagen: is the protein-rich, good stuff in bone broth that makes it such a super-food. Ice cream recipes traditionally call for milk or half and half along with the heavy cream, which adds carbs. Collagen provides a nutrition bonus without the sugar, and, no, it does not taste at all beefy or savory. .  

(c) 2017, Judy Barnes Baker