Low Carb Roquefort and Honey Ice Cream

When I found this recipe in “The Perfect Scoop” by David Lebovitz, I knew one day I would try to make it low carb. The recipe should work for any kind of blue cheese, but knowing how much thought David puts into his ingredient choices, I made sure to get actual Roquefort. (It’s made from sheep’s milk rather than cow’s milk.) Thankfully I didn’t have to track it down at some hipster-run artisan cheese shop. Trader Joe’s sells Société brand and it’s exquisite! I had to dig through their cheese section to find it.

David’s original recipe relies solely on real honey for its sweetness. We’ll be using the standard Truvia/EZ-Sweetz combination with honey flavoring from LorAnn Oils. It’s one of their “Super Strength Flavors” so a little ought to go a long way. You can usually gauge the strength of a flavoring by the number of negative reviews given to it on Amazon. Most people use too much and it results in an awful tasting food, so they give a negative review. The other mistake they make is to use an extract when an emulsion would be better and vice-versa.

My first attempt did not yield a full quart. I’m not sure why, but it might be the lack of extra bulk from the missing honey. I bumped up the quantity of almond milk and cream slightly to compensate. I was surprised at the consistency of the resulting ice cream mix. The melted cheese did not thicken the mix very much.

The original recipe didn’t include any mix-ins, but walnuts pair very well with the rest of the ingredients, so I buttered and honey’ed them with a little salt to keep the sugar-free honey coating from freezing too hard.

Ingredients

Ice Cream

1¼ cup (303 g) unsweetened almond milk or equivalent
1½ tablespoons Truvia
4 tablespoons LC Foods Milk Powder (optional)
4 large egg yolks
4 ounces (115 g) Roquefort or other blue cheese, room temperature
¼ teaspoon xanthan gum or ½ teaspoon Dixie Diner’s Thick It Up Low Carb Thickener
1 tablespoon (18 g) vegetable glycerin
21 drops EZ-Sweetz
1 teaspoon honey flavoring
1¼ cup (298 g) heavy cream

Honey Covered Walnuts

1 tablespoon (14 g) unsalted butter, melted
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons (40 g) Nature’s Hollow Sugar Free Honey Substitute
1 cup (100 g) walnut halves

Directions

1. Honey Covered Walnuts: Add all ingredients in a small cup and mix by hand to coat the nuts. Put in the refrigerator for a while. The butter/honey mixture ought to be very gooey and able to coat the nuts well. Stir them up again to make sure all the nuts are coated. Return to the refrigerator.
   
   
   
   
   
2. Ice cream: Add the egg yolks to the 4 cup Pyrex measuring cup and let stand.
3. In a small pot, add unsweetened almond milk,Truvia, and milk powder. Heat on stove top at medium heat until it reaches approximately 170 °F while stirring periodically.
   
   
   
   
   
4. Slowly pour the warm mixture from the pot into the egg yolks, whisking constantly.
   
   
   
   
   Scrape the warmed mixture back into the pot and return it to the stove top. Add the crumbed cheese to the 4 cup Pyrex measuring cup and put a strainer on top of it.
5. Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. The temperature should not exceed 175 °F. This may take a while to thicken sufficiently.
   
   
   
   
   Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the crumbled cheese.
   
   
   
   
   Mix the hot custard and crumbled cheese until it’s melted and integrated. I used an electric hand mixer on medium-low. It’s okay if there are a few small bits of blue cheese left. Whisk in the xanthan gum or Dixie Diner’s Thick It Up Low Carb Thickener while it’s still warm. Add and mix in the heavy cream, EZ-Sweetz, glycerin, honey flavoring and whisk together.
6. Cover with plastic wrap and chill in a refrigerator until cooled completely.
7. Follow your ice cream maker’s directions for making ice cream. One to two minutes before the ice cream is done, add the mix-ins. Use a silicone spatula to remove the ice cream from the ice cream maker and freeze until solid.

I made another batch using Hawaiian Pineapple flavoring instead of honey flavoring. At the last minute, I decided to toss in 3 strips of bacon, just because. No candy-ing. Just pure smoky bacon flavor.