Alpha Freezz Ice Cream Flavorings

LorAnn Oils doesn’t sell all of their flavors in the small 1.7 fl. oz. bottles. For example, their White Chocolate Macadamia, Flavor Fountain only comes in quart sizes. A quart is an awfully large size even for me, and I make ice cream almost every day. For the average person, that’s practically a lifetime supply. Another source of ice cream flavoring is from a company called Alpha Freezz. They repackage ice cream flavorings in 8 fl. oz. and 32 fl. oz. containers.

Rip Audio Compact Discs the RIGHT Way

Everybody knows Compact Discs (CDs) store audio digitally. Digital recordings may not be perfect representations of the original analog signal¹, but at least the bits read off the disc are guaranteed to be exactly the same every time it’s played. Well...no, not exactly. Errors due to dust, scratches, imperfections, etc. result in errors. It’s true that audio CDs perform some level of error correction, but they don’t guarantee that the output will be error-free. Nevertheless, we would like to extract the digital data without error when ripping the audio from a CD. I’m going to provide my list of tools and process that helps ensure the best results.

Low Carb Halvah Ice Cream

One of the simplest halvah recipes I’ve found is sesame paste (a.k.a tahini), honey, vanilla, and pistachios. Converting this into an ice cream is straightforward. I start with my Philadelphia ice cream base, add tahini, honey flavoring, vanilla extract, and pistachio nutmeats from Trader Joe’s. One word of advice: do not add any stabilizers to the mix unless you want a gooey paste of an ice cream. The tahini adds plenty of body on its own.

Low Carb Vanilla Fudge Ripple Ice Cream

I’ve been wanting to do this kind of flavor ever since I saw a recipe for “hot fudge sauce” in the Ben and Jerry’s cookbook. I knew it would be relatively easy to do a low carb version, but I’ve been procrastinating. Making my own chocolate swirl was never a top priority. I could have used Hershey’s sugar-free chocolate syrup, but I don’t like the taste of it. Fortunately, there’s another off-the-shelf product that is miles better: ChocZero Honest Syrups. I have tried the chocolate and caramel flavors and they are really good.

Low Carb Sweet Potato Ice Cream with Maple-Glazed Pecans

I’m sure ice cream made by David Lebovitz from ripe sweet potatoes is delicious. But the pound of sweet potatoes required adds 90 grams of carbohydrate alone. Fear not, because I have a low-carb workaround. David’s maple-glazed pecans mix-in will be accomplished by substituting maple flavored sugar-free syrup by Lakanto. It’s my first recipe using monk fruit as a sweetener.

Low Carb Spice Cake Ice Cream with Cream Cheese Frosting Bombs

I’ve discovered that a mix of cinnamon, amaretto, and Irish cream miraculously result in a flavor that tastes just like spice cake. It worked so well that I just had to bring back my cream cheese frosting bombs as a mix-in.

Low Carb Mudslide Ice Cream Affogato

One of my wife’s favorite cocktail drinks is a Mudslide. It’s a mix of vodka, Kahlúa, Bailey’s Irish Cream, and light cream. LorAnn Oils makes Kahlúa, a.k.a. Keoke Coffee, and Irish Cream flavorings, so a low carb Mudslide ice cream is easy-peasy. Scoops of this ice cream are going to be visually indistinguishable from vanilla, which would make for a very boring blog entry. Instead, I’m presenting my first Italian coffee-based dessert: an affogato. I’m going to drown three scoops of my Mudslide ice cream with a cup of coffee and top it all with whipped cream and chocolate syrup.

Low Carb Old Bay Caramel Ice Cream

Fish seasoning in ice cream? Believe it or not, this is The Charmery's best selling flavor. The instructions below specifically use my Philadelphia-style base because that’s the only way I attempted it. I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to attempt a French-style custard base version. The main difference will probably the amount of flavorings. I suggest leaving out the salt since the Old Bay season should provide all we need.

Low Carb Cream-a-Latta Ice Cream

This recipe was adapted from “Incredible Ice Cream” by Malcolm Stogo. It was originally written as a gelato to be made in a large batch freezer. I reformulated it for home ice cream makers.

I tried to find any references to “Cream-a-Latta” other than this recipe on the Internet, but came up empty. Perhaps Mr. Stogo made it up? I don’t know, but it’s delicious and that’s all that matters!

Using Metrics to Drive Improvement: The Tail Wagging the Dog

Performance metrics help quantify the overall health of an organization or product being developed. Quantitative analysis is a mark of a mature organization. Everyone knows that successful companies collect metrics; therefore, it follows that every company needs to measure things in order to be great. Measurements gauge the efficacy of processes that affect budget, schedule, quality, and safety. Critical business decisions are made based on the results of this data.

Most articles about measurement and analysis opine on the pitfalls of measuring the wrong things, getting buy-in from stakeholders, or how to interpret the numbers collected. Obviously, our ability to make accurate predictions requires proper measurements and good statistical tools. None of that is what this blog entry is about. Instead, I’d like to challenge the very idea that performance metrics themselves ought to drive improvements.¹