A rich keto chocolate ice cream with delicious chunks of peanut butter swirled throughout. A few special tricks help keep this sugar free ice cream soft enough to scoop after freezing.
I’m having a little fun these days going back through old recipes, seeing if I can update them and make them even better. I’ve learned a lot through my experiments with low carb, gluten-free ingredients over the past couple of years and there are a few recipes way back in the archives that give me pain. As in “they weren’t quite what I hoped they would be and the photos are hideous and if I had known then what I know now” kind of pain. This recipe wasn’t quite that bad. In fact, it was quite good and I was pretty happy with it at the time. But it was one I always meant to get back to and try to make a little better. Because hey, it affords me the opportunity to make and eat outrageous amounts of chocolate and peanut butter. I thought my photos from this old recipe for low carb Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream recipe were pretty good back then. But I think they are just a wee bit better now, don’t you?
So last week, to my children’s delight, I set about making low carb Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream again. My intention was to amp up both the chocolate flavour and the chocolate colour, while also making the ice cream softer and more scoopable. I may have learned a lot of the past few years but apparently I have yet to learn to check all of my ingredients before I set about making a recipe. I intended to make this with Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa, as that will give anything a richer, darker chocolate colour. But I discovered I was out and I had to use Ghirardelli instead. Still, I increased the cocoa powder somewhat and I added chopped unsweetened chocolate and it definitely improved the chocolate flavour.
As for keeping it more scoopable after freezing, I pulled out all the tricks I know. The first trick is to start with a really thick custard base. Using more heavy cream and less almond milk goes a long way to thickening the base, as does the cocoa powder and the unsweetened chocolate. Then adding a little alcohol and some xanthan gum, both of which are known to keep sugar-free ice cream from freezing too hard. If you choose not to use the alcohol or the xanthan gum because you lack them or are intolerant to them, that’s okay. It won’t affect the flavour, but it will mean that your ice cream will freeze more solidly and you will need to let it sit on the counter for 10 minutes before trying to scoop it. A little trick I’ve learned there is to divvy it up into portion-size containers before it freezes too hard, so you don’t have to thaw the whole lot each and every time.
So the moral of the story is I can make this ice cream more chocolatey, more scoopable and I can take much better photos of it. And that if you want it to be darker chocolate in appearance, make sure you have your Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa on hand before you set about making it!
Keto Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cups (416.5 g) heavy cream
- 3/4 cup (187.5 g) unsweetened almond milk
- 1/2 cup (91 g) Swerve Sweetener
- 1/4 cup (59.15 g) allulose, or xylitol
- 1/4 cup (21.5 g) cocoa powder
- 3 large (3) egg yolks
- 2 ounces (56.7 g) unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped
- 2 tbsp vodka
- 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
- 1/2 cup (129 g) peanut butter
Instructions
- Set a medium bowl in a large container of ice water.
- Whisk cream, almond milk, sweeteners and cocoa powder in a medium saucepan until cocoa powder is mostly dissolved. Over medium heat, stir occasionally and heat until mixture is steaming but not simmering, or 170F on a candy thermometer.
- Whisk egg yolks in a small bowl until smooth. Very slowly whisk in 1 cup of the hot cream mixture to temper the yolks. Then slowly whisk tempered yolks back into cream mixture, stirring constantly. Continue to cook until very hot, 175 – 180F.
- Add chopped chocolate and let sit 1 minute to melt, then whisk to combine.
- Pour mixture into bowl in ice bath and let cool 10 minutes then wrap tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 3 hours.
- When ready to churn, remove custard from fridge and add vodka, stirring to combine. Sprinkle with xanthan gum and whisk vigorously to combine.
- Pour mixture into canister of an ice cream maker and churn according to manufacturer's directions. When ice cream is about the consistency of soft serve, transfer half to an airtight container.
- Working quickly, add about half the peanut butter by spoonfuls. Add the remaining ice cream and the remaining peanut butter and swirl with a knife to spread evenly.
- Press plastic wrap flush to the surface and freeze until firm, 1 to 2 hours.
- Leftovers will freeze hard but not unscoopable.
Nutrition
Nutritional Disclaimer
Please note that I am not a medical or nutritional professional. I am simply recounting and sharing my own experiences on this blog. Nothing I express here should be taken as medical advice and you should consult with your doctor before starting any diet or exercise program. I provide nutritional information for my recipes simply as a courtesy to my readers. It is calculated using MacGourmet software and I remove erythritol from the final carb count and net carb count, as it does not affect my own blood glucose levels. I do my best to be as accurate as possible but you should independently calculate nutritional information on your own before relying on them. I expressly disclaim any and all liability of any kind with respect to any act or omission wholly or in part in reliance on anything contained in this website.
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Absolutely amazing! I had this recipe on my mind for ages! The ration of vodka and xantham gum made the consistency perfect after freezing overnight – hard but still scoopable with a spoon, as opposed to my last try which could have been used as an offensive weapon!
As a bit of added decadence (and after the other half kept making sad begging puppy eyes) we added a quarter cup of fine 80% dark chocolate shreds – this came out as decadent as it comes! We’ve portioned it into half cup dessert cups and stashed them in the freezer (as a precaution to eating the whole thing out of the tub!)
Thank you so much for this great recipe 🙂
If you’re doing Trim Healthy Mama, is this an E or a S
It’s an S. The amount of fat in it precludes it being an E.
Yum! Looks delicious. Have you heard of the new Ben & Jerry’s core flavors? That’d be amazing if you could recreate a low carb version!
Hmmm, what’s in their core flavors?
http://www.benjerry.com/flavors/cores
Hi Carolyn,
This looks amazing! I’m going to make it later today. If I use erythritol instead of swerve, should I increase the amount of stevia? I thought I read somewhere that swerve is sweeter than straight erythritol.
Thanks for all your awesome recipes!
It is a little sweeter than straight erythritol so you could do another 1/4 tsp of stevia.
Than you so much for your fast reply:)
Can’t wait to try! Tx
Hi:
I am wondering if Sunflower Lecithin could replace the gum in this recipe. I cannot use any starches or gums for health reasons. I can use Unsweetened Geletin and Sunflower Lecithin, would any of these work? Thank you for your help, Sincerely, Cathi G.
I’ve never used it but I’d say it’s worth a try. Or you can skip the gum altogether, just know that it will freeze a little more solidly, and as I said in the post, the best approach here is to freeze it in individual portions and just let one portion thaw 10 minutes on the counter and it will be good again.
Oh my goodness. This is my favourite ice cream in the whole wide world and you can’t get this in France. I LOVE YOU!!!
Sorry, was that too eager? 😉 I’ll see how it is without the vodka since we don’t keep alcohol in the house. Anyway, I came back to get your pb chocolate cake recipe for today.
And I thought of you this week when I made sugar-free macarons: http://aladyinfrance.com/low-carb-mocha-espresso-macarons/ although I won’t be launching a career as a sugar-free baker any time soon. Why bother when all day someone else dreams up food for me?
Just made ice cream and love using xanthan gum, but never tried the alcohol trick! Definitely going to use some in my next batch!!!! Chocolate and Peanut Butter ice cream is my husband’s favorite flavor, can’t wait to try this low carb version on him!
This ice cream looks so creamy and decadent!
Oh.My.God. This is Awesome. When I was in college in NC, there was a local grocery store brand that had a chocolate peanut butter ice cream. It had a ribbon of sweetened peanut butter running through it and my roommate and I used fight over it. No more fighting. 🙂 This one is mine. All mine. Can’t wait to make it.
Haha, I used to do the same thing with Turkey Hill Ice Cream!
Love that this ice cream uses almond milk! Chocolate and peanut butter is the best!
Bless you for making this! PB and chocolate take me to my happy place, and I love the almond milk in here too!
This ice cream looks absolutely fantastic!!!
The instructions call for vegetable glycerin yet it’s not in the ingredients?
Sorry, cut and pasted some instructions from another recipe (why re-invent the wheel, right?) and forgot to eliminate that.
Hey Carolyn, is there a reason you use Xanthum gum in this recipe but vegetable glycerin in others? Made and enjoying the PSL ice cream this week 🙂
I often use both, actually! It’s tricky to get ice cream to stay soft but my biggest issue with glycerin is that I can’t find a good solid info on carb count. It’s a sugar alcohol and it doesn’t *seem* to affect my blood sugar very much. I often put it as “optional” in recipes because of that issue.
Yum! And I love the hershey’s special dark cocoa – I always try to keep an extra in the cupboard. So good…
I should have done that too! 🙂
Adore your tips for keeping sugar free ice cream soft and scoopable! I always do the alcohol trick…because, why not. Thanks for these!
And chocolate and peanut butter? Um yes. Always. Everyday. Even in the winter.
Thanks, Taylor!
Is this THM approved? I won’t be using the vodka . does anyone also know if it be a lot harder to scoop then? Maybe I’ll put it in the fridge for 3 hours and leave out for 15 minutes before using if so. Thanks!
It will freeze a little harder but you can skip the vodka
Would this recipe work with coconut cream instead of heavy cream? I can’t have dairy sadly and I looove icecream!
I honestly have not been that successful in getting coconut milk based ice cream to say soft. So it will work but it will freeze very hard.