You Scream, I Scream, We All Scream For Ice Cream!

The Colonel got me a Cuisinart ice cream machine for my birthday from Sur La Table. With this machine I can also make frozen yogurt, sherbet and sorbet as well as frozen drinks (Pina Coladas anyone?).

I tried my hand at making a sugar-free, mint chocolate chip ice cream a couple of days ago.

I started out with the basic vanilla ice cream recipe that came with the machine (in place of vanilla extract I used peppermint extract and Sweet 'N' Low in place of sugar).

I whisked together 1 cup of whole milk, 6 teaspoons of Sweet 'N' Low, 2 cups of heavy cream and 1 teaspoon of peppermint extract.

I turned on my machine and then poured the mixture into the freezer bowl through the ingredient spout.

I poured the 4 ounces of mini chocolate chips into the machine during the last five minutes of the 25 minute mixing cycle.

The mixture had to ripen for two hours in the freezer.

We had the ice cream after dinner.

The ice cream had a great flavor. The consistency was not as creamy as I was expecting. I am not sure if that had a lot to do with using the Sweet 'N' Low instead of sugar.

The instruction booklet that came with the machine did say the consistencies will be different than store bought products because this is made with fresh, pure ingredients and does not contain the gums and preservatives that commercially produced ice cream, frozen yogurt, sherbet and sorbet do.

I think I will try my hand at frozen yogurt next.