Janet, I don't know if there are a lot, but I have made sugar free or low sugar ice cream for Dad, his favorite was a brown sugar pecan made with brown sugar Splenda, although that's really part brown sugar, it's not sugar free.

In addition, because he was diabetic, the fat content in ice cream was pretty high.

I did make frozen yogurt for him out of my homemade low fat yogurt, some artificial sweetener and whatever fruit I had on hand that was good, I pureed that, mixed everything together and put it in the ice cream machine. It tasted really good but it froze really hard, it had to sit for a minute out of the freezer before it could be scooped.

Anyway, here's the brown pecan recipe, adapted from a recipe I got here, I hope someone claims it because I got it before I knew enough to put a name with everything.

Brown Sugar Pecan Ice Cream
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1 cup milk
1 scant packed cup brown sugar
4 egg yolks
3 cups heavy cream
1 cup pecan pieces
.
Heat the cream. milk and sugar in a heavy-bottomed saucepan, stirring occasionally until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is hot. place the egg yolks in a bowl and whisk briefly. Still whisking, slowly pour
in about 1 cup of the hot liquid. When the mixture is blended, slowly pour it into the liquid in the saucepan, whisking constantly. Cook over heat, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens slightly and coats the back of a spoon, about 8 minutes. Be sure not let the mixture boil
at any time or will curdle. strain into a clean bowl and cool thoroughly. Stir in the nuts. Pour the mixture into the bowl of the machine and freeze.

Makes 5 cups.

Annie

We recently did an experiment in my Food Science course where we replaced the sugar in ice cream with artifical sweetener (splenda) and other sweeteners (honey, agave, etc.). The initial taste was fine with the splenda, but there was an after taste, typical in artificial sweeteners. The "mouth feel" also wasn't as satisfying - the crystals in the ice cream were more prominent, making it less smooth and creamy. My suggestion would be to use 75% of the sugar in the recipe, and of that, replace 1/2 with artificial sweetener.

The best thing to do though, and I'm sure you already know this, is to cut back on your portion size. Of the partially low sugar ice cream, have 1/2 portion instead of a whole portion.

Do you have T2DM? It's OK to have sugar - just be sure to correctly count it in your carb count for the day.

AM

Annie - this recipe sounds great!! I love lots of nuts (and fruit) in my ice cream.

AM - Thanks for the suggestion on reducing the sugar. I can have some, I just need to be careful.

Thank you ladies!! I appreciate the time you took to help me. Have a great week!!

Janet

Janet, I hope you enjoy it, but as AM noted, there is always the aftertaste from artificial sweetener.

I've also found that if you like fruit ice cream, and you use good local fruit at the peak of its flavor, you can make a nice ice cream or sorbet with less sugar because the fruit is so sweet and flavorful. Of course, everyone has different tastes, Dad would add sweetener to berries or fruit that I thought was already plenty sweet enough.

Annie