A simple vanilla bean ice cream to add to your digestible kitchen basics. Believe it or not, ice cream is a wholesome and healthy food when made using pastured eggs, milk/ cream, and sugar. It is “a perfect combo of pro-metabolic sugars, protein, calcium, and a little fat of the good, saturated kind.” – Emma Sgourakis, the Nutrition Coach.

Most ice creams you will find in the supermarket are packed to the brim with nasty additives – read the ingredients of any packet and you will clearly see. Interestingly many of the premium organic brands also contain “food junk” such as carrageenan (a natural polysaccharide extracted from red seaweed, that is a powerful allergen and very inflammatory to the gut) – read more here.

This recipe does not require any heating or custard making before churning, however you may certainly heat some of the milk and egg yolks if you like the more custardy taste. Simply whisk it all together in a bowl and then pour the mixture into an ice cream machine. You can make it without an ice-cream machine (see kitchen notes),  however the light, fluffy and easy to scoop texture really does come from churning.

I often play around with the quantities depending on what I have in the fridge – using more milk than cream makes it more like Italian gelato and a little more balanced in terms of the macronutrients. See what your body responds to best and customise it to suit you and your family.

from the pantry
2 egg yolks from pastured chooks
1 cup of organic cane or rapadura sugar (see kitchen notes)
pinch sea salt
300 mls milk
300 mls cream
1 vanilla bean

let’s begin
SEPARATE eggs, freeze whites to use in another recipe, and place two egg yolks into a mixing bowl
ADD sugar and pinch of sea salt and whisk together
ADD cream and combined
ADD milk and gentle whisk
SCRAPE the seeds from the vanilla bean and add the seeds into the mixture (see kitchen notes – don’t throw out the vanilla bean!)
POUR into ice cream machine and churn
STORE in freezer once churned

kitchen notes
:: I like to blitz my sugar in the thermomix turning it into powder – this makes it very easy to dissolve in the cold batter (as the recipe does not heat the mixture). If you choose to use rapadura the ice cream will have a more caramel flavour – this can be lovely with the addition of some fresh pureed strawberries.
:: You may use thick or pouring cream, again be sure that there are no vegetable gums or thickeners in your cream.
:: Never throw away your vanilla bean, I like to keep mine to add to the saucepan when stewing fruits.
:: If you are looking to buy a machine I would recommend this one here.  I use this ice cream machine, which I recommend if you are looking for a machine with an inbuilt compressor (meaning you will not need to pre-freeze the bowl).
:: If you don’t have an ice cream machine, you can still give it a go – simply place the mixture in the freezer.  Just as it begins to harden (time varies, however I find after around 3 hours), take it out and whisk it well by hand or in a food processor and then return to the freezer – the more times you do this, the creamy and lighter the ice cream will be.