Want a truly delicious and tangy low carb lemon ice cream? Look no further than this delicious Lemon Curd Ice Cream recipe. All the great lemon flavor without the carbs. Sugar-free and keto-friendly.
This lemon ice cream recipe has been updated to be easier and better than ever! And I have a few tricks for keeping it soft and scoopable, even days later.
There’s no question that I get obsessed with certain foods from time to time. I like to say that it’s an occupational hazard of being a food blogger who really does dream about food all day. Like a catchy tune, sometimes a flavor or a food item will just get stuck on replay in my head, going around and around until I have to find a new way to use it. Lemon curd has been the tune I’m singing of late, ever since I made some for an Easter brunch with friends. It’s so sweet and tangy, and so…so…lemony, it just screams spring. But here in New England, we skipped over spring entirely and went straight into summer. So my head has also been playing the tune of ice cream and other frozen treats. It wasn’t much of a leap to combine the two and churn up some low carb Lemon Curd Ice Cream.
I’ve seen lemon ice cream made with lemon curd before on other blogs and food sites, and it was pretty easy to figure out how it should be made. Lemon curd takes a lot of eggs as it is, so I knew it wouldn’t be necessary to add more to create a custard-based ice cream. I also really wanted the tang of the lemon curd to come through and not get swallowed up by the cream and the sweetener. I’ve seen some recipes that add a lot more sugar after adding the curd, which is plenty sweet in my opinion. But I kept my additional sweetener to a minimum, to allow for a tangy, creamy frozen treat.
How To Make Lemon Ice Cream
- This recipe now uses my updated low carb lemon curd. And I have to say, it’s all the better for it. The new lemon curd uses whole eggs, so you won’t have any lonely and unused egg whites hanging around.
- Be sure to cook your lemon curd in a glass or ceramic bowl. I find that metal bowls react a bit with the lemon juice to leave a funny metallic tang.
- If you’ve ever made lemon curd before, you know that it’s about getting the eggs and yolks to just the right temperature so that they are cooked through. It will thicken up quickly and suddenly, so make sure you keep your eyes on it at all times!
- Let the curd cool in the fridge before mixing with the whipping cream. Cover it tightly with plastic wrap so it doesn’t develop a skin.
- Once your curd is nicely chilled, you just need to mix in the other ingredients and plop it into your ice cream maker!
Keeping Low Carb Ice Cream Soft
Okay guys, I have been messing around with ice cream lot this summer, trying to figure out the trick to keeping it soft. And I’ve found that my best trick is to use a combo of Swerve Sweetener and Bocha Sweet. Bocha Sweet is a sweetener derived from the kabocha squash, and it’s a pentose sweetener. Xylitol is also a pentose sweetener, so it appears to be similar to that although it’s not toxic to animals according to the website.
I would love to tell you that I am sold on Bocha Sweet as the perfect low carb sweetener. But I am not entirely. So far, it does not seem to affect my blood sugar that much and I have several diabetic readers who’ve recommended it to me and say it works for them. But for some people it can cause some severe stomach upset (at least according to the Amazon reviews!) and while I haven’t experienced that, I am reluctant to try it full strength. It’s also quite expensive – even more so than other low carb sweeteners.
It’s also not a perfect sugar replacement. I tried using it in some low carb meringues and they were a disaster! They never firmed up at all, staying sticky and gooey.
However, I am finding it useful in keeping keto ice cream scoopable and soft. I made one batch of vanilla with just Bocha Sweet and to be honest, it was almost TOO soft and slightly goopy. So then I tried a batch that was half Swerve and half Bocha Sweet and it was firmer but not rock hard. I am still playing with the ratios here but I think a 50/50 or even a 60/40 (in favour of the Bocha Sweet) seems to work well.
So for this keto lemon curd ice cream, I recommend one of two things. Either make your lemon curd with Bocha Sweet and then add some powdered Swerve when you add the whipping cream. Or vice versa: make your lemon curd with Swerve and then add Bocha Sweet as the additional sweetener. The first option will probably give you the softest results.
If you don’t have Bocha Sweet or prefer not to use it, your ice cream will freeze pretty hard but it will soften nicely with a few minutes on the counter. The added vodka can really help.
Want more delicious low carb lemon recipes?
Low Carb Lemon Curd Ice Cream
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cup heavy whipping cream
- ⅓ cup Bocha Sweet or powdered Swerve Sweetener
- Full recipe Lemon Curd chilled
- 2 tablespoon vodka optional (helps decrease iciness)
Instructions
- In a large bowl, whisk together whipping cream, Bocha Sweet or powdered Swerve, and lemon curd until well combined. Whisk in the vodka, if using.
- Pour mixture into canister of an ice cream maker and churn according to manufacturer’s directions.
- Transfer to an airtight container and freeze until firm, 2 to 3 hours.
Notes
Aubrey says
Is there a way to make this without an ice cream maker?
Carolyn says
You can fold whipped cream into the lemon curd.
Karen says
I use bocha sweet mostly. Erythritol sweeteners do not agree with my husband. I don’t find using all bocha sweet soft and goopy. in fact i forgot to add the vodka and it was rather hard my last batch of ice cream. my daughter only uses bocha sweet also. she can’t tolerate any of the others. or very little of them. i seem to be able to tolerate the alcohols if i don’t overinduldge. lol Love your recipes. I haven’t tried this recipe yet but i plan on it. Lemon sounds good to me today.
Pam Forrester says
i am going to try this I love everything lemon too. I make an instant pot lemon curd. So easy! I have been keto/low carb for 10 years and ice cream was a very dependable dessert for me. But I wanted to let you know how I keep ice cream scoopable. I don’t know where I got the idea but adding one or two scoops of whey protein works better than anything else to keep ice cream scooble. I use vanilla in most recipes and chocolate in chocolate ice cream. of course. I am sure to use 2 scoops when making strawberry or some other flavor with a lot of water. Vodka didn’t work and neither did all heavy cream. (coats your tongue) I just ordered your easy dessert cookbook
Cindi Topper says
Do you know the measurement of the lemon curd? I am planning on subbing in a keto passion fruit curd that I made from a different recipe, and I cant figure out how much curd to use.
Carolyn says
Look at the lemon curd recipe… the number of servings times the serving size will indicate the total amount.
Susan Sylvia says
I followed this recipe almost to the letter (unusual for me) and I can attest that it is EXCELLENT. I’m always in search of the perfect recipe for anything, and Carolyn has kindly done the legwork for all of us here. I love lemon curd, so I made a double batch of her low-carb version to have extra to mix in with plain Greek yogurt–another slice of heaven on a low carb diet. FYI, the curd recipe she uses makes about 1 cup. The nice thing about making double is that if you want your ice cream to be more tart, you can do it, which I did add a bit extra. I don’t have Boca sweet, so I also added 2+ tsp. of spiced rum left over from Christmas eggnog, and that went great with this flavor–you couldn’t taste the rum, it just deepened the flavor of the lemon a bit. Very nice.
Paula Robinson says
Carolyn, I love everything lemon and decided to try your Lemon Curd Ice Cream. First of all, I really wanted to eat the lemon curd after it had cooled, but I refrained. This ice cream is fabulous!!! The next time I might cut back a little on the sweetener and I was thinking about making an almond meal crust, breaking some up and tossing in when it’s almost ready to make it like a lemon pie ice cream. 😮
Pattie Martin says
This is a great summer treat, instead of vodka I used keto friendly lemon cello, this gives a nice pop of lemon then served with a few fresh raspberries .
Thank you for the wonderful recipes!
J9 says
This has become my favorite ice cream over the summer. Thank you for the tips on mixing sweeteners to achieve the right consistency. I’ve had good luck mixing Boca Sweet with Besti powdered. I don’t use the vodka, and it turns out a perfect, creamy, scoopable consistency every time. This lemon ice cream makes me wonder why anyone ever eats ice cream with sugar. Actuality, the lemon curd is good enough on its own to eat with a spoon. Thank you so much!
Lynn Kirouac says
I made this ice cream yesterday with the lemon curd I made the day before. It is the best ice cream I have ever made. Very creamy, not too sour, and not too hard or too soft. Perfection!! I used the Bocha Sweet in the curd and the Swerve in the ice cream, plus I added the vodka. I have a GE ice cream maker with two settings – I used the fast spin for a softer ice cream and churned it for 45 minutes. It was like soft serve when it was finished but after 12 ours in the freezer it was just right. This will be a regular in my house!!
Carolyn says
So glad to hear it!
Melissa says
Hi Carolyn, I’m getting a little confused. Under How To Make Lemon Ice Cream, step 4 mentions adding the cream and covering tightly. In the recipe it sounds like all ingredients get whisked together. Is step 4 a holdover from your old recipe? The lemon curd turned out fantastic. I’m chilling now so I can make the ice cream. Thank you!!!
Carolyn says
I’m sorry, I think you are reading that incorrectly. It says to let the curd cool BEFORE adding the whipping cream. The curd and the ice cream are two separate recipes (the curd is linked in the ice cream recipe). You have to make that first and let it chill. THEN you whisk everything together.
So if you’ve made your curd already and chilled it… you’re good to move on.
Marcelle says
THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST KETO ICE CREAMS I HAVE MADE YET! I did lime instead of lemon. I made a mistake when making the curd and used half monkfruit and half BochaSweet. I think this was a very happy accident because the ice cream came out lusciously soft. Not like soft serve but it doesn’t get rock hard like other keto ice creams. It was so easy to scoop out and it tastes DIVINE!!!! (I did add a 1/2 tsp of lime extract to bump up the flavor a bit). Next time I will mix in some keto graham cracker pieces. BRAVO!!!!!! I wish I could give it TEN STARS!
Carolyn says
Glad it worked out!
MARCELLE says
Can I assume I can do the same thing with limes instead of lemons to make a key lime ice cream?