I’m missing ice cream. Anyone have any recipes or suggestions for a healthy alternative?

Hi Squidge, I’ve just recently discovered Halo Top brand ice cream. It’s low carb and low calorie (4g net carbs and 60 calories per half cup serving) and I can attest it tastes pretty good! It is artificially sweetened though. I’ve had a go making my own ice cream out of coconut cream and berries, which tasted nice but it set hard as a rock in the freezer haha. At least it kept me occupied as it took a lot of scraping with a spoon until it was melted enough to eat. Maybe someone can post a better recipe! Good luck, I can sympathise as ice cream is my favourite dessert

Thanks, Lanoa.

How did you make your coconut one? I’m thinking it might work in lolly moulds, as an ice lolly rather than ice cream for scooping.

Hi,
If you blend some frozen bananas or berries with ff Greek yogurt for a few seconds in a blender, it is quite like an ice cream.

You could make raspberry ripple! Full fat cream or ff Greek yoghurt blended with raspberries and pour in lolly moulds. Or pour in muffin paper cases and add a chopped nut on top and a microwaved square of 90% cocoa choc drizzle! Obviously you’d have to work out the macros, cals etc. I wonder if blended berrries with a splash of water poured in to ice lolly moulds would work? Let us know what you decide!

Yes I definitely think coconut would work as an ice lolly. It was easy to make, I just mashed a few blueberries, placed them in a silicone cupcake mold and topped with coconut cream then put in the freezer for a few hours. As others have suggested, yoghurt would work too and you can be inventive with flavourings. I particularly liked frozen coconut and lime juice!
One thing I learned was that it’s the sugar in ice cream that lowers the freezing point and therefore gives it the soft texture when frozen, so the lower in sugar your lolly, the harder it will set
Here’s a few resources that might give you ideas:
http://theorangepantry.com/coconut-fruit-icy-poles/
https://thehealthytart.com/vegan-mango-coconut-ice-cream/
http://paleo.com.au/recipe-coconut-icy-poles/

Thanks all of you – lots of great ideas.

Lonoa, I was thinking the lack of sugar might make the ice cream hard. That wouldn’t be a problem with a lolly though, and as they take longer to eat, they’re probably a better alternative. One of the problems with ice cream is that it’s really easy to eat a lot and hardly even notice. I could easily eat three normal helpings in one go and then conveienently forget all about it. Don’t think I could get through three lollies one after the other and kid myself I’d not had them.

Right, I’m off to find the lolly moulds and rummage in the fridge and cupboards for ingredients. I shall report back …

Squidge, here is a recipe for No Churn Dark Chocolate Ice Cream if that helps.

The trick to “not too hard” ice cream low in sugar is to add a bit of alcohol. For pops, 1 tsp of vodka ought to do it. And xanthan gum (for a small batch of pops try 1/8 tsp….tiny tiny bit).

This is from gnome-gnom.com. She has fabulous recipes and also a vanilla ice cream.

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No Churn Deep Chocolate Ice Cream from GnomGnom.com

This (no-churn!!) low carb and keto chocolate ice cream is ridiculously creamy and a breeze to whip up! i.e. it’s ideal.

Servings 10 scoops
Calories 245 kcal net carbs 3g

Ingredients

1 13.5-ounce can full fat coconut milk *
135-150 g Swerve or xylitol, to taste**
50-75 g cocoa powder use the smaller amount for milk chocolate and the larger for dark
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum ***
480 g heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons vodka, brandy or booze of choice ****optional

Instructions

Add coconut milk, sweetener, cocoa and salt to a saucepan over medium heat. Mix using an immersion blender or whisk until all the solids from the coconut milk have the dissolved and the mixture is fully blended.

Sprinkle xanthan gum little by little and blend until fully combined. You will likely have some air bubbles, but be sure to check there are no lumps. Any lumps will be resolved by mixing with an immersion blender (or in an actual blender). Remove from heat and allow the mixture to cool completely.

Add heavy whipping cream to a large chilled bowl and whip until soft peaks form. Blend in vanilla extract and the cooled chocolate mixture. (Optional): add in more cocoa, to taste, for a dark chocolate version.
(Optional): add in your booze of choice. The mixture should be thick but still pourable. And, if for any reason your mixture is too thick (whipped cream too much, used a lot of cocoa…): thin it out little by little with more coconut milk. See recipe video for texture reference.

Transfer ice cream to a sealable container and place in the freezer until frozen (4-6 hours to overnight).

If freezing overnight: take out your ice cream 10-20 minutes prior to serving (depending on your room temp!) and scoop away.

Recipe Notes
*You absolutely NEED to use full fat coconut milk here! As lighter versions are simply diluted in water, and they’ll make your ice cream more icy.

**Please see section on sweeteners for deets and possible subs. And if using xylitol, make sure to be careful if you have a pup around the house, as it’s highly toxic to the little guys! 🐕

***Be sure to measure a very lightly packed 1/4 teaspoon of xanthan gum, as it’s an ingredient that’s easy to overpack. And if you overdo it, you’ll get gummy ice cream.

****Booze is totally optional, it just keeps your ice cream from freezing rock solid. This ice cream is super creamy though, so 10-15 minutes at room temp make it ultra scoopable once again.

Please note that nutrition facts were estimated per 1/2 cup serving. This recipe yields approximately 5 cups.

Nutrition Facts
No Churn Keto Chocolate Ice Cream

Amount Per Serving
Calories 245
Net carbs: 3 g

Total Carbohydrates 4g 1%
Dietary Fiber 1g 4%
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 25g 38%
Calories from Fat 225
Saturated Fat 17g 85%
Cholesterol 65mg 22%
Sodium 77mg 3%
Potassium 112mg 3%

Thank you!

I couldn’t find the lolly moulds (hubby swears we never had any) so went to plan B. I mixed a little of a tin of coconut with lime juice and froze in an ice cube try. We’ve just tried them. Nice and refreshing, but rock hard. Couldn’t eat many (but that’s a good thing!).

I mixed the rest of the coconut with the pulp from two passionfruit and some youghurt and stuck it in the freezer. I keep taking it out and beating it (and licking the spoon!). I suspect it’ll still be rock hard, but we’ll eat it anyway.

Experimenting is fun! I’ll get ingredients for some of the other suggestions next time I’m shopping.

I’m so chuffed you tried my suggestion! haha, glad I could help. How did the passionfruit ones turn out?
I’m saving that recipe luvtcook!! I didn’t realise you could make soft ice cream without a maker or having to babysit it stirring every half hour as it freezes. I love granita too, but never made it more than once because it was too much work

As the passionfruit ones seemed like it would be rock hard, once it was semi solid, I divided it into small portions which I’ve frozeb separately. That should help portion control, as well as physically serving it. (Am I a genius or what?) It looks nice. We’ll be trying it today – as we ate all the lime cubes yesterday, I thought I should wait.

I’m guessing the gum is another thing which stops the ice cream setting rock hard. It’s not something I’ve ever used, so I’ll have to search for that – or skip it and hope for the best!

As I suspected, the passion fruit one is quite hard. Because I froze it in small portions we were able to eat it and it would have worked well as a lolly, I think (stil can’t find the moulds, so will be some.) Flavour is great. Obviously not very sweet, but the coconut and yoghurt make it quite rich, so it seems icecream-like.

I’m working my way down the list, so the next attempt will involve bananas, berries and yoghurt.

Success!

I found ice lolly moulds (pack of four small star shaped ones in ASDA for £2.50 for those who want to try this).

I made a smoothie with full fat yoghurt, banana, vanilla extract and just enough milk for the blender to work. I think it would be too hard to scoop, but by the time they’d been out the freezer long enough to come out of the moulds, the texture was very like ice cream. They’re not very sweet, but I only used one banana for eight lollies. I had worried they’d go brown, but that didn’t happen.

I’ll experiment with different proportions – and try strawberries and cream too.

Hi Squidge,
Was your banana frozen first?
Try cutting up the banana (your blender will thank you for cutting the banana up!) and freezing It, then putting it in the blender with the Greek yogurt. Eat it as soon as it’s mixed, it’s like a slush, I suppose. But quite an ice- cream-y experience.
Likewise with the frozen berries (I buy those in the supermarket already frozen): put in pretty much equal volumes of frozen berries and Greek yogurt, blend, and eat straight away!
XX

Hi Pancita,

No, the banana wasn’t frozen. My blender is a bit weak and feeble, so I’m not sure it would cope, but I do have a bigger food processor which might be better. I’ll try that method for the next batch. (I’m trying to just have the various ice cream things as a treat and not get into the habit of eating them every day).

The best so far is mango, with some ff yoghurt and just enough milk to get the blender to work. It’s a little like Solero ice lollies, but better – I used to love them, but find them overly sweet now.

This mix would be too hard to scoop, but is great in lolly moulds. It might well work as soft ice cream in an ice cream maker. I daren’t get one as I’d make, and therefore eat, far too much!