Ice Cream Recipe One: Sugar Free Mint Chocolate Chip

Once again this weekend has been dedicated to making ice cream. It's been a bit tricky learning how to do it, but luckily I have some good web recipes to help me make it through. The results of last weeks poll determined that I would make Brownie Fudge (BF) and Mint Chocolate Chip (MCC) ice cream. I was pretty excited because I decided to make the MCC sugar free (Yay Diabetics!!!) which meant I could guiltlessly partake of it...almost. SO here is the first recipe and a few pictures to go along. Remember, these recipes are for an Ice Cream machine, but if you make a mistake you can always put your mix in the freezer until it hardens.

Sugar Free (almost) Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream


Ingredients

2 cups milk (I used 1% skim, you can use whatever you like!)
1 cup Splenda
1/4 cup fat-free powdered milk
14 oz of Egg Beaters or the whites from 8 eggs
1 cup fat-free half-and-half (I used vanilla for some extra flavor)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of mint or peppermint extract
1 bag of mini chocolate chip morsels

Recipe
First, if your freezer bowl for your ice cream machine is not frozen solid, put it in the freezer now!!! It can take from 6-24 hours for it to freeze, so check your instruction booklet and make sure you know how much time you will need to freeze your bowl, cool your ice cream etc. This may require a lot of patience (Boo!) if you are one of those instant gratification sorts like me.

Once all that is figured out, in a large pot ( 4 quarts or larger), mix the fat-free milk, Splenda and powdered nonfat dry milk. Bring the mix to a low simmer over medium heat and stir to dissolve the Splenda, then turn the heat down and just keep it warm.

Put the egg whites in a medium bowl and whisk until they are thickened. This takes about 2 minutes if you use a hand mixer, or have a hungry Max around that wants to beat them for you.
(P.S. I'm sure there are many women out there with better mixing arms than mine, but being in the throws of vet school, and not being the most organized person, my arms are currently weak and T-Rex like.)

Slowly add one cup of the hot milk to the egg whites, whisking constantly, until it is well combined.Then pour the egg mixture back into the pot of hot milk and increase heat to medium. Stir the mixture constantly with a wooden or plastic spoon, until the mixture is thickened (like gravy) and registers 170-180°F.


Stir in fat-free half-and-half,vanilla, and mint. Cover and pop into the refrigerator for at least 6 hours before continuing (Yeah, I know, it's ridiculous!). Once your mixture is cool, and your freezer bowl is frozen, turn on your machine and pour in the mix. Most machines will have instructions on how long to utilize your machine, I generally do it by sight. When the mixture is a slurry, ad in about half the bag of chocolate chips, more if you want super chip filled ice cream!!!

Here is Max fixing my ice cream maker for me. There was way too much ice cream to go in at once. Part way through we emptied it and refilled it. However, the ice cream on the side was very hard, so the machine wouldn't turn against it. Max had to scrape doen the sides so I could finish my project. (Note: You can probably guess by now that I am a bit lazy and Max has to "help" me when I am too lazy to do things myself. Yep, he's a keeper!!!)

Yay for green ice cream!!! I forgot to say that I added three drops of green food coloring!!! It seemed really light until it spent the night in the freezer. When it came out the next day the flavor green had gotten much brighter, the mint flavor less minty, and the chocolate more pronounced. All in all it came out really well!!!

Yum!!! I really like this ice cream. Be advised it is pretty low fat, so when it goes in the freezer it gets pretty solid. I have been microwaving mine to soften it quicker, but if your more patient you can leave it out for awhile to thaw.

This recipe was found and slightly modified from pickyourown.org:

http://www.pickyourown.org/howtomakefatfreeicecream.htm