Strawberry Ice Cream

A few months ago I decided to cut out sugar. And flour. And gluten. And basically all carbs, really. It has worked like a charm for helping me lose weight; it’s like my body is just resetting itself without much thought from me. I mean, I have to think about what I choose to eat or not eat, but there’s no counting, no measuring, and no tracking, and it’s wildly empowering. I’ve done WW in the past and still love the program, but sometimes a girl has just gotta live life for a bit. I choose to live it with bacon. Covered in mayo. Wrapped in lettuce… Mmmm…

Ok! Anyway! This post is about strawberries. They tend to be one of the lowest carb fruits out there, and they are in season, so I picked up some pints at the farmers market. My mission was to make ice cream without sugar, but still use the cream and the eggs to get a good texture.

The results? Meeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhh. A lot of work. And the ice cream turned rock hard. Apparently sugar works as an antifreeze and helps give ice cream its texture. However, vodka can do the same. Next time I’ll put a shot of strawberry vodka in the ice cream base and hope that helps it stay scoopable.

But for your voyueristic pleasure, here are some pics of my ice cream journey:

Here are the roasting strawberries. They are good as long as you don’t burn them.

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I pureed some strawberries and cooked them hoping to bring out their sugars more. Meh.

This is the lovely ice cream base that you have* to cook over low heat. Gorgeous. *old ice cream recipes don’t require you to cook the eggs, I was going to feed this to babies so I cooked the base. Your choice.

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More smashing of berries trying to get out the juice and tastiness. Again, more work.

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This is what it looks like when you put it into the fridge. Not very pink. As it cooled it did turn a delightful pink color!

All said and done, the kids loved it. Which is all I could ask for. I just kept thinking, ‘You know what would make this GREAT?? Sugar.”

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I highly recommend you save yourself the time and just whip up some cream and fold in some berries. Just as tasty and super easy!

All in all it was fun to experiment and I do plan on trying it again but definitely with the vodka! I also want to make strawberry flavored vodka from fresh strawberries. I read you can use cheap vodka to do that, so a half gallon of HRD here I come!!

Peace be with you!