Low Carb Chocolate Hazelnut Ice Cream

I’m perplexed why hazelnuts aren’t more popular in the USA. Mention Frangelico liqueur or Nutella and people swoon, but you may be hard-pressed to find hazelnuts in your local supermarket. It’s also surprising that hazelnuts don’t come up often in ice cream recipes. When it does, it’s usually paired with chocolate. I made this with a sweet cream base and with a chocolate base. Both were good, but I prefer the chocolate base.

Wild ice cream recipes that I probably won’t ever attempt

I found a book called Ice Cream Galore by Caroline Barty that has some pretty off-the-wall recipes. These are all savory flavors meant to be served with fish or meat. I doubt that I will ever make these, so I’ll provide the original ingredient lists with the author’s commentary and leave them up to you to give them a try. Most contain no sugar and ought to be low carb, as-is.

Low Carb Horchata Ice Cream with Cinnamon Coated Almonds

Horchata is a drink usually made from made of ground almonds, sesame seeds, rice, barley, or tigernuts. LorAnn Oils makes a flavoring that I felt would be perfect for an ice cream. It's great just with with cinnamon and sweetener sprinkled on after it’s been scooped, but I decided to add cinnamon coated almonds.

Sugar-Free Spiced Nuts

Spiced nuts are a common theme in many ice cream books. Humphry Slocombe uses “Frosted Peanuts,” which are peanuts coated with sugar, but no spice. Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams has recipes for “Honey Nut / Blackstrap Pralines.” Molly Moon’s Homemade Ice Cream uses “Candied Hazelnuts” in their ice creams. David Lebovitz in his book, “The Perfect Scoop,” includes a recipe for “Pralined Almonds.” The combinations are limitless!¹

Low Carb Black Walnut Divinity Ice Cream

This is a popular flavor by Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams and is in their recipe book. The original recipe involves grinding ½ cup of toasted walnuts into a paste using a food processor and and then mixing that into the heated base “so the oils in the walnuts adhere to the oils in the butterfat—this locks the walnuts’ distinct flavor into the cream.” By all means, go ahead and make it that way if you like. I took the easy way out and used black walnut flavoring, which means any of my low carb sweet cream bases can be used including the no-cook method.