Chocolate Banana (Vegan/Dairy-Free, Sugar-Free) Ice Cream

In the days of your SAD diet, did you have a frosty from Wendy's?  Ew gross me neither, haha!  Just kidding.  I did, and they were the shit.  I miss garbage like that.  Luckily, with this recipe, you don't have to.  This stuff is crack.  Frozen.  Chocolate.  Crack.  It's crazy good.  And stupid easy.  Get to it!

Vegan/Dairy-Free, Sugar-Free Chocolate Banana Ice Cream
3 frozen overripe bananas
3 tbsp cocoa powder
1 can light coconut milk
2 packets of your preferred stevia sweetener (optional, and you may not need it depending on the ripeness of your bananas)

Process your frozen bananas until creamy in your food processor, then add coconut milk and cocoa powder. Pulse just until combined.  Now taste it and see if it needs additional sweetener- it may not.  If so, add in your stevia and pulse again.  Refrigerate for a few hours.  Then prepare according to your ice cream makers instructions.  Still don't have an ice cream maker?  WHY?  There is practically nothing healthy, tasty, and sugar free on the market, and certainly not a lot that is dairy free and/or paleo friendly.  Coconut Bliss Sugar Free is good, but super expensive, and full of gums (xantham, guar)

This ice cream will blow your mind.  Want to jazz it up?  Add chocolate chips at the last second, or add a few tbsp of peanut butter to the cuisi when pulsing.  Make some caramel sauce with rehydrated dates.  So good people.  You do not need to have any guilt whatsoever about giving this to your family.  Yes the bananas are full of fructose and starch, but I save my fruit for desserts and treats, so I feel ok about this.  Plus, it enables you to really cut back on the sweeteners.  No erythritol or xylitol needed in this recipe.  Don't like coconut milk?  You can't taste it- I promise.

Have fun with this recipe- and use it as a base for other ice cream flavors!  Minus the cocoa powder and with a little bit of vanilla extract- this would be a delish vanilla ice cream!

XoXoGFG

No Sugar Creme Brulee Ice Cream

Just because you no longer eat sugar doesn't mean you can't find a way to indulge every once in awhile- and I don't mean the odd piece of fruit here and there either.  While real creme brulee at home is not something I'm too interested in- I was successful at making some awesome creme brulee flavored ice cream at home!  If you have an ice cream maker- definitely give this a try. 

Creme Brulee Ice Cream
6 egg yolks
4 cups whole milk
3 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
8-10 packets of stevia (I used purevia)
pinch of salt

Separate egg yolks in a mixing bowl and whisk with electric whisk/beater until the yolks are a light yellow color, will take a couple minutes or so.  Empty contents of stevia packets into yolks and incorporate well.  In a saucepan, heat up milk until it's just simmering, and remove.  With a ladle, slowly and carefully pour milk into yolks, stirring continuously.  Go really slow and take your time, this part is a bit tedious but better to go slowly than get scrambled eggs!  Once all the milk has been added, pour mixture back into saucepan over med heat.    You'll want to keep stirring and wait for the mixture to thicken, and coat the back of your spoon.  It will start to resemble a custard.  Once it has thickened, remove from heat and add cinnamon, pinch of salt, and vanilla.  Stir to combine, and then strain to make sure there are no solids.  Pour into a large bowl and refrigerate over night.  The next day, prepare according to your ice cream makers instructions, and you'll have delish softserve creme brulee ice cream in about 25 minutes.  If you'd like it to harden a bit more, place in freezer for about 2-3 hours.  Overnight, it will harden quite a lot, so you'll need to leave it out on the counter for 30 minutes or so before eating.  Enjoy!

Coconut Sorbet

So I got my Cuisinart ICE-21 Ice Cream, Yogurt, and Sorbet maker- and I do really like it- but obviously there is a slight learning curve involved.  I tried the coconut sorbet recipe right from the manual- it was incredibly simple.  I skipped the part about steeping a vanilla bean in simple syrup, and meant to add vanilla extract right at the end, but I forgot of course.  The result is pretty tasty, though not at all what I expected, and also much more like a granita than a composed sorbet.  I think I made a few critical errors that will hopefully make the next batch creamier and more sorbet-like, rather than a mixture of granita-ish icy stuff, and then the rest mostly liquid. 

I used two cans of light coconut milk, which of course regular full-fat would be much better for creaminess.  I mixed in 1/4 cup of stevia in the raw and a 1/4 cup sucralose.  Next time I would use 1/4 cup sweetener total- I just can't tolerate too much sweet these days.  Grosses me out.  All I did was mix the coconut milk and sweeteners together, and then poured into the freezer bowl.  Mistake numero uno.  You are supposed to pour in the base while the bowl is on the base and already in motion.  This probably contributed to the thick sheet of ice stuck to the bowl.  Secondly, I did some research and it seems like most people have better luck when they've chilled the base in the fridge for a couple hours.  I'll try that too.  And I'm sure a creamier base to begin with would have helped.

Next up is plain tart frozen yogurt.  There are a ton of videos on Youtube about using your ICE-21 to make tart frozen yogurt.  Most seem to use a combination of TJ's Greek Yogurt, and then some plain yogurt, with lemon zest and a bit of sweetener.  I have a feeling it will take awhile to tweak this recipe to my own preferences, but I can't wait!  I'll post recipes once I get a few that actually work well and are up to par!  And stay tuned for a few more recipes later today! :)
XoXoGFG