alexist

Mom wanted me to make her ice cream (it's amazing--we get her an ice cream maker, so I end up making it...) I figured I'd start with vanilla, as that's the most basic flavor, and will tell you if you've got the custard base right.

She told me there were recipes for Atkins ice cream on the Internet. I was looking at them, trying to decide which looked best, when it hit me: the only difference between these recipes and regular ones when it came to vanilla was the sweetener. So I went to a cookbook I trusted, found its recipe for vanilla ice cream, and made that, using Splenda for sugar (plus adjusting the cream/milk proportions to use half-and-half in place of whole milk. I pointed out that when you mixed it together, you ended up with the same thing, but Mom insisted on no milk. I couldn't be bothered to argue the point.) It came out great. I'm always dubious when you hear about sugar/fat-free recipes that taste "just like the real thing", but this was damn close. I can usually detect artificial sweetener in a flash, but I didn't.

It could've had a slightly stronger vanilla flavor (my bad--the original recipe used both a bean and extract, but I didn't have any vanilla beans handy, so I just upped the extract a bit [if you overdo it on vanilla extract it tastes bitter] Wasn't quite enough, I guess!) but was otherwise really good. Next up, trying some actual flavors. :-)