We’ve established that I struggle with following instructions.

I prefer to cook by Jazz.

Cooking, like quilting, is an art form.

The Wonky Truth

As much as I post food pics on the ‘gram and occasionally share a recipe or two (like the time I accidentally discovered Sweet Potato Soup), I’m not the culinary genius here.  Hubs has me beat in spades.

But there are things that ONLY I make in this house.

Like Ice Cream.

I’ve been experimenting with Ice Cream because the Keto varieties at the store are redonkulously expensive and only slightly passable.  

So far, I’ve made (and learned a lot from) a Cherry Chocolate Boozy variety… a delicious Mint Chocolate Chip… One of my favorites is Coffee Ice Cream…. 

But recently, I made Brown Butter-Pecan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Shelley Reed (@momma_oz)

Every time I make a new flavor, 2 things are simultaneously true.

1. Hubs proclaims “This might be my favorite yet”
2. I quietly mumble “I should have written that down”

Again, I cook by jazz.  a little of this, a little of that, a lot of tasting along the way.

The Inspiration

It always starts the same.  Googling the pioneers who have come before me to find the building blocks for a recipe.

Scrolling through Insta isn’t a waste of time if you see cool things that inspire you, right?

The Actual Ainsley drew me in with her post about the Brown Butter Pecan Blizzard… that’s where it started. Then I headed over to SubStack for her full recipe version 

It looks delicious as is and probably doesn’t need to be tweaked even a little bit. Unless of course, like us, we are trying to minimize sugar and carbs.

The Lessons Learned

• A blend of Half and Half with the heavy cream called for in most keto recipes makes for a much nicer mouth feel.
• Not all sugar substitutes work the same. 
  • Splenda – not go-to for coffee and baking is not the right solution for ice cream.  It results in a rock hard ice cream.
  • Several recipes I found call for Polydextrose in the mix – this works, but also keeps the ice cream from freezing solid, so it melts rather quickly
  • Allulose is a perfect solution – resulting in a solid ice cream that is still scoopable but doesn’t melt before I get down to the bottom of my cup
• Use your preferred ice cream churning device.  For me, it’s the KitchenAid ice cream attachment bowl, but it would work just as well in the Ninja CREAMi or other ice cream maker.
• Once churned, THEN add in your mix-ins…. add them too soon and you are left with a mix that just does not freeze.
• The best part of browned butter are the milk solids.  You can increase the browned butter flavor in any treat by adding some milk power to your butter and browning.  More extra brown bits equals more brown butter flavor.

Try it Yourself

There’s not a real recipe here.  Sorry not Sorry.  Part of the fun in cooking and playing in the kitchen, so go for it.

The rough version of what I do is pretty basic.

Heat 1 cup of half and half with your sweetener of choice.  Hot, not boiling. 

If making coffee Ice cream, I add in espresso powder here, not later.  Heat helps the coffee melt in beautifully.

If making vanilla, here’s a great step to add in the split vanilla pod if you are using those, but for extract or paste, late and add it later.

I temper 4 egg yolks with the hot mixture, one ladle at a time until I get impatient and then dump the egg yolk mixture into the rest of the hot half and half.

I’m gonna strain it anyway but any amount of tempering your egg yolks helps minimize the scrambled eggs. 

Great for breakfast, less so for ice cream.

I bring this back up to almost boiling and then strain into a new bowl, nestled into an Ice bath to stop the cooking and cool the mixture down.

While it’s cooling, I debate what flavor this is going to be

That’s not entirely true…. I usually have a plan before I start

When making the boozy Chocolate cherry, I needed some cheery syrup to add to the base and cherries and broken chocolate pieces for mixins.

For chocolate mint, I needed mint extract and some chocolate pieces as my mix-in

For Butter Pecan, I found a recipe for Keto Candied pecans to add later, and needed some browned butter and maple extract.

You can see the possibilities are endless.

Once the half and half / egg custard has cooled, add in your flavorings.

Then, whip up 2 cups of heavy whipping cream until stiff peaks form.  This helps add air into the mix so when you churn it, it’s already light and fluffy.

Fold in the custard with the whipped cream and add this to your ice cream churning apparatus.

Once churning is complete, it should be a soft serve consistency and THAT’s when you add in your crunchy bits.

• Nuts
• Chocolate
• Ribbons of caramel
• Fruit or jam

Again, you are limited only by your own imagination!

Storing your Ice cream

Once churned, you need to store your ice cream in the freezer.  I usually freeze it for 3-4 hours before consuming to give it the scoopable texture we love.  

Could you store it in a regular bowl, sure.  but then you run the risk of ice forming.

I started with these oblong two-piece containers that promised scoopable ice cream every time.  

They worked okay, but then we dropped the outer segment and it cracked… plus, they didn’t always deliver scoopable ice cream and it was difficult to get them fit into the freezer, so I went searching for a new solution.

That’s when I found these quart sized containers on the ‘zon and I’m in love – 

The tops are easy to get on and off, they are sturdy and the size fits perfect in the freezer.  One batch of ice cream yields 2 quarts, so I can put one front and center and the second hidden in the back so when I want ice cream, I still have some, plus a little left over for popsicles I store in these molds – 

 

Does it use a lot of dishes to make Ice cream?  The way I do it does.

Does it take a bit of time to make your own?  Yep…

Is it worth it?

ABSOLUTELY.

I think my next batch is going to be a white chocolate raspberry flavor… stay tuned to see how that turns out.