Three Ways To Corrupt Low Calorie "Ice Cream"

Cheat weekend. I can't say my mathematically inclined self agrees with the principle, but there's something to having a planned and sanctioned outlet for all the treats I don't get to make on a regular basis. It's also a great excuse for higher-calorie proofs of concept for new flavor options.

For Nate, I tried out a Faux-lo Top base enhanced with 78g (6 x 2 T servings) of unsweetened peanut butter powder and 16 g (1 T) unsweetened peanut butter. That's 360 cal/serving. Maybe more salt than typical, but otherwise no noteworthy changes to the base.

Oh, except the part where I made a batch of Minimalist Baker's peanut butter cookie dough. At most, 1/3 of the recipe was used for 3 servings of base. I suggest you don't even try to count those calories.

Even without the cookie dough chunks, this was tasty, peanut buttery, and creamy. I wonder if it truly needed 90 calories of peanut butter or could have been jacked up with even more peanut powder instead. Next time? Also, J. R. Watkins has an excellent peanut flavored extract that I would have used had this been for me (Nate tends to be sensitive to extracts so I minimize their use). For me, two half-batches of Alternative Ice Cream. One used a tofu base, and was flavored with 1 cup toasted unsweetened coconut flakes and 1/2 c untoasted flakes, and 1 t coconut extract. The toasted flakes were left to steep overnight in the milk, strained out, and added at the end of churning. The untoasted flakes were blended with the base. Nice chunky, grainy texture in all the right ways, but the coconut wasn't quite strong enough to mask the tofu flavor (not that I mind it). I bet some pineapple extract would take care of that! Individuals interested in a lower-calorie version of this would likely be satisfied with 1 cup of toasted, reduced fat shredded coconut (280 calories). Some coconut flour could be used for more body. As is, this was about 350 calories/serving (about 1 pint).

The second batch was made with the more typical cottage cheese base. I used most of a 2.75 oz bag of Act II Butter Lovers popcorn, which was the most buttery thing I could find locally. After removing the unpopped and partially popped kernels, this was about 8-9 cups of popped corn smushed into the cashew milk, steeped overnight. I strained it out to heat the milk with the rest of the base, to which I added 1 egg yolk. I don't normally use eggs with this base, but I was worried the yellow oily stuff would not remain properly emulsified (somewhere in my basement is an unopened bag of soy lecithin, I swear). The soaked popcorn kernels were blended back in until smooth. I also added 1 t of butter sprinkles and 2 t vanilla. Great texture, but the popcorn flavor didn't quite translate as I had hoped. I might try for a movie theater butter flavored option next time (and use less gum). Assuming my estimated amount of corn used is accurate, a > 1-pint serving is about 260 calories - not too awful for a cheat day.

I've been making cashew ice milks these days, so revisiting the recipe after an absence makes me want to reevaluate the use of gums. I can't help thinking the amount of guar is excessive, but made sense when I wasn't hydrating it in warm cashew milk. For these bases, I used 1 t of a 4:1 guar/xanthan blend for each half, and I suspect that was already more than necessary (especially considering the pureed coconut/popcorn included).

#sweet #splurge #icecream