Thursday, July 10, 2014

Low Carb Ice Cream Cones and Bowls

Sometimes a great idea is right under your nose, and you’ll miss it. And keep missing it, until pow! It hits you. I was looking up ice cream paraphernalia on Amazon when I ran across this...

Chef's Choice Waffle Cone Express Ice Cream Cone Maker.

It’s a waffle cone maker. Waffle cones are the good kind of ice cream cones. They’re sweet and have a hard cookie-like texture. Not like the ones with the flat bottoms that taste like cardboard and make you curse your parents for buying them.

Sunday, July 6, 2014

Low Carb Pistachio Ice Cream

Pistachio ice cream is one of those flavors that I really like, but rarely make. I must subconsciously think that pistachio ice cream is an just an ordinary flavor and should concentrate on more exotic concoctions. While I will never be so boring as to make a plain vanilla or chocolate ice cream, pistachio deserves its time in the spotlight. What nudged me towards this decision was my recent buying-spree of ice cream flavorings made by LorAnn Oils. I plan to base the majority of my recipes in the near future on these babies.

Friday, July 4, 2014

Low Carb Sweet Cream Bases

The foundation for most ice cream recipes is what’s called a “Sweet Cream Base.” This is basically vanilla ice cream without the vanilla flavoring. There are lots of different variations of the sweet cream base. The simplest is cream, milk, and sugar. This is known as a Philadelphia style base and uses no eggs. French style uses egg yolks that are tempered and made into a custard. Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book has three variations including one using condensed milk. Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams adds corn syrup and cream cheese to their ice cream base in order to reduce large ice crystal formation and improve texture.

For low carb ice cream using tools found in the home, I’ve settled on two formulations: French Custard Base and Ben & Jerry’s “Whole Egg” Base. The first is much more complicated to make, but ought to result in a slightly richer ice cream. The second is super easy, but involves using raw eggs or purchasing pasteurized eggs. Most ice cream books do not use egg whites in their recipes. The claim is that the egg whites do not provide any benefit to the finished ice cream. However, I’ve found that using whole eggs whipped with a hand mixer on maximum speed results in a finished ice cream that had more overrun (i.e., air) than with just egg yolks. The ice cream is very scoopable even at low temperatures.

Future recipes that use a sweet cream base will link to this entry. It’s up to you which one to make since they ought to be interchangeable. Both recipes produce a “generous” quart of ice cream. If a recipe includes lots of solids (e.g., large nuts, cookies, cookie dough, etc.), cut back slightly on the cream/milk portions.