Chocolate Banana Ice Cream Recipe - Low Sugar and Low Carb

Since I'm not able to eat sugar any more I've been very sad about not getting to eat ice cream.  Ice cream was my go-to comfort food, and I have spent a lot of time learning how to make delicious homemade ice cream.  I don't want that skill to go to waste!  So I've been pondering this very low sugar/low carb ice cream recipe for a while and I finally got around to making it and I think its delicious.  It is perfect for my palette that no longer likes things super sweet and it satisfies the chocolate and creamy goodness of ice cream.  I think it would also work well as a nice dessert for people with diabetes.  You can easily adapt the recipe to a normal ice cream recipe by adding 3/4 cup of sugar (I have included where to add this in the instructions).

A half cup serving of this ice cream will give you about 12g total carbs, 3g of fruit sugar, and 2g of cane sugar.

Chocolate Banana Ice Cream Recipe

INGREDIENTS

• 4 or 5oz of dark chocolate cut into pieces
• 2 TBSP unsweetened cocoa powder
• 4 egg yolks
• 2 cups of whipping cream
• 1 cup of 2% milk
• 2 overripe bananas
• 1 vanilla bean (could substitute half tsp of vanilla abstract)

INSTRUCTIONS

• Take 1 cup of the cream and warm it up on the stove.  Add the cocoa powder and the vanilla bean. (Slice the vanilla bean open and scrape it and let it soak in the warm milk.  
• Once hot remove from the heat, add the chocolate and stir until its melted.  Move the mixture to a new large bowl and let the warm mixture sit with the vanilla bean in it.
• Rinse out the pot and warm up 1 cup of milk (If you want to make this a fully sweetened ice cream you can add 3/4 cup of sugar to the milk now).  Put the egg yolks in a separate bowl and whisk.  Pour the warm milk slowly into the bowl while whisking constantly.
• Pour the egg milk mixture back into the pot and cook over medium heat stirring constantly.  When the mixture (custard) coats the spatula and you can draw a line on the spatula with your finger, the custard is done.
• Pour the custard through a strainer into the chocolate/milk mixture.
• Immediately pour in the last cup of cream and stir vigorously.  You should put the bowl in an ice bath, but I never do that step.
• Pull out the vanilla bean and scrape as much of the insides as you can.  Discard the shell.
• Peel the two bananas and break them up and put it in the mixture.  Use an immersion blender, or pour the mixture into a blender and blend.
• Cover the ice cream and put in the fridge, preferably overnight.
• Pour in your ice cream maker and churn according to its directions.
• Eat straight from the ice cream maker or put in a container and freeze.  I like to use small glass mason jars.

See here for more ice cream making tips.  Please comment if you try this recipe.  Thanks!