French Vanilla Ice Cream Recipe

Posted: 5th December 2019

Vanilla ice cream is a wonderful thing. It's just as welcome on a hot summer's day as it is on a cold winter evening, paired with a hot homemade pudding. Vanilla ice cream can be bought by the tub in stores, but nothing beats the richness and deliciousness of easy homemade vanilla ice cream. This could easily be the best vanilla ice cream recipe ever! It's creamy, smooth, and has a wonderfully balanced sweetness that is not too sweet like many store bought ice creams are. While this is a very simple vanilla ice cream recipe, good quality ingredients and a little patience goes a long way. It really is worth the little bit of extra effort when you're scooping soft, melting homemade vanilla ice cream onto a warm dessert

Another reason why we think this vanilla ice cream is one of the best vanilla ice cream recipes ever is that it is also a sugar free vanilla ice cream recipe! We want to share the ways that anyone can enjoy the food pleasures of life without processed sugar, and this no sugar vanilla ice cream is no different! The fact that this recipe makes such a lovely vanilla ice cream without sugar means that it is not only a great diabetic ice cream recipe, but also healthy! Imagine that – a soft, creamy and healthy vanilla ice cream recipe - who would have believed it? We think you're going to love it

Many wonder how to make vanilla ice cream without an ice cream maker because it seems impossible to do a recipe for old fashioned homemade vanilla ice cream that turns out right, from before the time they had all these ice cream makers. We hope you'll see by the end of this recipe that learning how to make sugar free vanilla ice cream can be really easy. The process is pretty simple, it just involves a bit of cooking on a low heat, a bit of cooling, a bit of checking and stirring every now and again, and it's done! And the delicious results speak for themselves. If you've never tried an old fashioned homemade vanilla ice cream recipe before, you absolutely have to try it and see how beautiful it turns out compared to other vanilla ice creams you may have had before. For us, there's no going back now! We would always make sugar free ice cream ourselves because of how beautifully it turns out

Vanilla extract is definitely an option for a low sugar vanilla ice cream like this, but if you want to make this sugar free ice cream from scratch, and you want a beautiful, intense and natural flavor, we would hugely recommend using vanilla pods. Natural vanilla has a number of health claims attached to it – it's rich in antioxidants and has an antibacterial nature, which means it's often considered great for the immune system, and according to some studies, it can even promote healthy digestion and is good for the heart. Not only that, but the taste of natural vanilla is something very different to extracts and processed alternatives, and we think its well worth the extra bit of effort

The seeds inside the dried vanilla pods are a unique sight if it's your first time using them. You need a good sharp knife to slit right down the middle of the pods and then peel them open. The seeds are squashed together in a very black, deeply aromatic and slightly sticky paste-like substance. They smell wonderful! We found ourselves regularly stopping in the middle of preparations to take in the fragrance, and we bet you'll end up doing the same! Dried, natural vanilla is simply irresistible

When it comes to using the vanilla during cooking, we add the paste inside the pods to the pan to melt into the cream. You'll be amazed how such a relatively small amount can completely fill the finished ice cream with fragrance and delicious flavor! But during the cooking time, there's no need to waste the leftover pods. Place these into the pan along with everything else to make sure as much of that beautiful natural vanilla flavoring is infused into the ice cream as possible. We'll be removing the empty vanilla pods towards the end, but even then, don't throw them away! Add them to a cup of tea or coffee to extract even more flavor from them. Good quality vanilla pods can go through this process 2 or 3 times, and they'll still have a little bit more flavor to release.

Good quality double cream will give this vanilla ice cream without sugar all the body and texture it needs. Buy organic if you can, and don't start to worry and end up buying single cream instead – the sugar has been taken out of this recipe, so you're already going a long way to make your ice cream recipe healthy - some organic double cream isn't going to harm! Gently heated, stirred well, and combined with some lovely, organic egg yolk brings the double cream to life in a thick, smooth texture that looks and tastes incredible

To make sure the vanilla ice cream mixture doesn't get too thick, and to help prevent a skin from forming too quickly, we add some milk. A vanilla ice cream recipe like this with all the lovely, fresh ingredients being used deserves fresh, organic milk. Organic milk hasn't been processed in the same way, has a good healthy fat content, and just tastes great compared to cheaper milk

As with any soft serve vanilla ice cream recipe, the better the eggs, the better and creamier the ice cream. Free range, organic eggs are readily available in most places now, and while the price tag is not hugely different from non-organic eggs these days, the taste is sometimes worlds apart! Sometimes, sugar is packed into ingredients to mask lower quality ingredients – this is true of many store bought vanilla ice creams. But when you're making a low sugar vanilla ice cream recipe, the quality of the eggs really does matter. You won't regret when you taste the smooth, silky results of organic eggs from well treated hens

For this healthy vanilla ice cream recipe, we want to use 6 egg yolks! This is the only part that can be a little fiddly, but separating egg yolk from the white is a great skill to practice and perfect. There are different ways, we use the method of pouring the egg between the two halves of the shell, allowing the whites to drain into a bowl while the yolk stays in the shell. However, we've seen some weird and wonderful ways of removing the yolk – from using cloths, all the way to squeezing a plastic bottle, pressing it against the yolk and letting go, to make it suck the yolk into the bottle, leaving the whites behind! Whatever way works for you, go ahead until you have 6 egg yolks to work with

Keep the leftover egg whites in the fridge! We encourage this with any leftover ingredients for many of our recipes. There are very few things that actually need to be thrown away in the end – egg whites can be used for sugar free meringue, a beautiful glaze for homemade bread, mayonnaise – all sorts. It's always worth holding on to them, and any other leftover bits and pieces from recipes. It's always worth checking on Google to see what you can do with leftover things from recipes. Even egg shells! Who knew they were a great source of calcium for the garden? Simply add them to the soil or compost. Steps like this are a great way to reuse things and minimize waste

Many vanilla ice cream recipes recommend the use of almond milk. It's also popular in many sugar free vanilla ice cream recipes. We couldn't agree more! We use almond in a lot of our recipes like our sugar free brownies, because it adds a lovely maturity to the flavor, and a subtle sweetness that can bring all the other ingredients together wonderfully. However, since we feel regular milk gets the best taste and texture for this diabetic vanilla ice cream recipe, and we don't want the mixture to get too watery, we use ground almonds, or almond flour. It melts in and infuses such a wonderful flavor without thinning the vanilla ice cream mixture

Time to add some sweetness to our sugar free vanilla ice cream. For other sugar free vanilla ice cream recipes aspartame, erythritol or other artificial sweeteners are used. But we like to sweeten our sugar free recipes with more natural ingredients. Sometimes we use natural dried stevia leaf, which is very different to the artificial sweetener and has a wonderful, fresh natural sweetness. And for this sugar free ice cream recipe stevia leaf could work. However, we found that raw honey worked perfectly on its own, and gave the sugar free ice cream all the sweetness it needed. It just shows how unnecessary it is to have the stacks of sugar you often find in store bought vanilla ice cream

It's important on a diabetic diet or a sugar free diet to use the right type of honey. We use raw, unprocessed honey, which sometimes uses many different names – wild honey, sometimes unpasteurized honey, or cold-pressed honey. Whatever name it has, don't be fooled by other honeys using titles such as "natural", or even "organic" – if a honey really is raw, it will say it on the packaging, you won't have to search for it. If you're not sure what to look for, or you're looking for more information, or if you're interested in what type we use, have a peek at our honey blog

Along with the ground almonds, a tiny pinch of salt will help to just balance out the taste and add a little maturity to the flavors. Once you've finished the recipe and the ice cream is in the freezer, it needs to be taken out every hour, about three or four times, to be stirred. This is because we're making this low sugar vanilla ice cream without a machine, so the occasional stir while it freezes prevents it from turning into an ice block, keeping the ice cream light and smooth

This sugar free vanilla ice cream recipe is absolutely delicious and wonderful on the side of a variety of sugar free dessert recipes on this site. When everything has frozen, serve this sugar free vanilla ice cream on its own, or with a dessert that's still hot. Absolutely delicious! If you want to try a sugar free chocolate ice cream, we have a recipe for that here too!

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