Jimmy Higgins
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- Jan 31, 2001
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I've been dieting for the past couple of months (lost around 20 lbs or about 9000000 mg). One thing I couldn't have was ice cream. Because you know... lots of calories for not so much. So, like any normal person, I put together a spreadsheet to analyze just how the calories added up and see where I could reduce.
There are three main sources of calories in ice cream, sugar, dairy, and eggs. In general, it appears that typical ice cream is a mix of milk and half and half. The "good stuff", primarily half and half. The very good stuff, half and half and heavy cream. Many many recipes online ask you to use heavy cream in heavy doses. As noted before, the "good stuff" uses half and half. So any recipe with heavy cream is pretty overkill both in flavor and in heart disease.
So I've begun working on ice cream, hardly an expert... yet. In order to get a good low cal ice cream recipe, you need flavor. Mint and Coffee come immediately to mind both in potency and lack of calories. The good thing about eggs is they are kick out-able in a recipe. Don't have to have them. One way to make up for the eggs is to use a higher fat recipe. The fat generally helps smooth out the ice cream... but it is also the source of why you are about to break your ice cream scooper when you be using an ice pick to get it out of the container you just removed from the freezer. Also, as noted, trying to avoid the calories.
Unfortunately, this ends my expertise in ice cream, as Xanthum gum is recommended to help gel the ice cream together. I believe Coldstone uses pudding mix (but that has calories).
Without Xanthum gum, whole mix ice cream is a bit hard and crystally. I used about half the sugar other recipes called for. It turns out decent, but I think adding something to help with the texture will improve the product.
The other thing I want to try is Stevia... the no calorie natural sweetner that is so sweet, you shouldn't use it without professional help. From what I've seen online, the reviews of ice creams with stevia are all over the place. One article I read suggested that stevia when used with sugar, is actually the best solution. The stevia helps extend the flavor, instead of trying to be only thing on stage... kind of like Rick Wakeman is better when playing with Yes, than doing a solo show. But I'll need to try that out and see if that works.
Back to the spreadsheet, my conclusion for making lower calorie ice creams was halfing the sugar and using whole milk. Yes, you can use 2% or lower, but the calorie savings verses the likely degraded quality of product isn't a good trade off. I have some mocha coffee cookies and creme made with just whole milk in the freezer at the moment and will report on the findings. I believe that has a 240 calorie per cup rating, which is about 80 calories (334000 mJ) lower... about 25.0000 percent.
I will discover either the truly best low calorie ice cream every made or fail miserably and ultimately reinvent the wheel, rediscovering that it can't be done. Either way, should be interesting... and because it is only whole milk, I'm not blowing through a huge amount of money to do so.
Any one else has advice, recipes, snipes feel free to share, as long as it is ice cream or some sort of other dessert born from an ice cream maker.
There are three main sources of calories in ice cream, sugar, dairy, and eggs. In general, it appears that typical ice cream is a mix of milk and half and half. The "good stuff", primarily half and half. The very good stuff, half and half and heavy cream. Many many recipes online ask you to use heavy cream in heavy doses. As noted before, the "good stuff" uses half and half. So any recipe with heavy cream is pretty overkill both in flavor and in heart disease.
So I've begun working on ice cream, hardly an expert... yet. In order to get a good low cal ice cream recipe, you need flavor. Mint and Coffee come immediately to mind both in potency and lack of calories. The good thing about eggs is they are kick out-able in a recipe. Don't have to have them. One way to make up for the eggs is to use a higher fat recipe. The fat generally helps smooth out the ice cream... but it is also the source of why you are about to break your ice cream scooper when you be using an ice pick to get it out of the container you just removed from the freezer. Also, as noted, trying to avoid the calories.
Unfortunately, this ends my expertise in ice cream, as Xanthum gum is recommended to help gel the ice cream together. I believe Coldstone uses pudding mix (but that has calories).
Without Xanthum gum, whole mix ice cream is a bit hard and crystally. I used about half the sugar other recipes called for. It turns out decent, but I think adding something to help with the texture will improve the product.
The other thing I want to try is Stevia... the no calorie natural sweetner that is so sweet, you shouldn't use it without professional help. From what I've seen online, the reviews of ice creams with stevia are all over the place. One article I read suggested that stevia when used with sugar, is actually the best solution. The stevia helps extend the flavor, instead of trying to be only thing on stage... kind of like Rick Wakeman is better when playing with Yes, than doing a solo show. But I'll need to try that out and see if that works.
Back to the spreadsheet, my conclusion for making lower calorie ice creams was halfing the sugar and using whole milk. Yes, you can use 2% or lower, but the calorie savings verses the likely degraded quality of product isn't a good trade off. I have some mocha coffee cookies and creme made with just whole milk in the freezer at the moment and will report on the findings. I believe that has a 240 calorie per cup rating, which is about 80 calories (334000 mJ) lower... about 25.0000 percent.
I will discover either the truly best low calorie ice cream every made or fail miserably and ultimately reinvent the wheel, rediscovering that it can't be done. Either way, should be interesting... and because it is only whole milk, I'm not blowing through a huge amount of money to do so.
Any one else has advice, recipes, snipes feel free to share, as long as it is ice cream or some sort of other dessert born from an ice cream maker.