Low Fat Blueberry & Vanilla Ice-Creams

For the last day of this week’s marathon, I am here with a low fat, low calorie ice-cream, perfect for the upcoming summer. Last week I came across this ice-cream link on one of the social networking groups. As soon as I saw the recipe I wanted to try it and blog it this week. I made two flavors of ice-cream with this recipe, vanilla and blueberry. Both the ice-creams were good, but I must confess, Vanilla was the best. The tricky part however was choosing the color for this week’s theme. I thought of going with color blue as one of the flavors is blueberry. This ice-cream is made with evaporated milk and this milk is not pure white. I figured color of vanilla might be the closest color of evaporated milk. Since I had two choices, I narrowed it to color vanilla and moreover I also made a vanilla flavor and felt it might be apt to go with this color.

Coming to the recipe, this is a three ingredient recipe, evaporated milk, sugar & the flavor. Yes, that’s all you need to make this ice-cream. No heavy cream, no eggs and no condensed milk either. And we don’t need an ice-cream maker either! All we need is a stand mixer… Well, not quite. I don’t have a stand mixer either and I used my hand held mixer and it worked fine.

Coming to the ice-cream, it is a low calorie, low fat ice-cream which is perfect if one is conscious about the calorie intake. This recipe yields about a quart or 1 liter ice-cream and the calories from 1 can of milk is around 250 calories. If using low fat evaporated milk, it is only 60 calories. I did not calculate the calories from sugar but, I am sure it still has fewer calories than the ice-creams made with any other milk or cream. This ice-cream is not dense and rich but it is soft and fluffy. Since I don’t have an ice-cream, I had to rely on my freezer and it took about 8 hours to set the ice cream. With an ice-cream, ice-cream is ready in a jiffy.

Last Sunday I made this ice-cream, one with vanilla flavor and other with blueberries. I used evaporated milk and confectioners’ sugar for blueberry ice-cream and low fat evaporated milk and granulated sugar for vanilla ice-cream. Although I used low fat evaporated milk for vanilla ice-cream, I liked this flavor the most. Blueberry ice-cream was also good but I felt I could have added bit more of sugar to it. I do not know if that was because I added blueberries or the recipe itself needs more sugar. Since evaporated milk has few calories, I think next I will go with regular one, instead of low fat evaporated milk.

Source: Crunchy Cream Sweet who followed Random Recipes
Preparation Time: At least 8 hours if not using an ice-cream maker
Yields: About 1 quart

I shall list the ingredients I used for both the ice creams separately. The preparation is same for both the flavors except for adding blueberries for blueberry ice-cream.

Ingredients:
Blueberry Ice-Cream:

• 1 12oz. can Evaporated Milk with vitamin D added (can use low fat evaporated milk too. I used it for Vanilla flavor)
• 1 ¼ c Confectioners’ Sugar or Powdered Sugar (I used ½ cup granulated sugar for vanilla flavor)
• 2 tsp. Vanilla Extract
• 100 grams or ¾ c Blueberries pureed

Vanilla Ice-Cream

• 1 12oz. can Low fat Evaporated Milk with vitamin D added
• ½ c Granulated Sugars
• 2 tsp. Vanilla Extract

Preparation:

• Refrigerate evaporated milk for at least 3-4 hours or overnight. Before preparing it, open the can pour it into a 2 ½ quart bowl. Yes, you would need a large bowl as it is going to increase in volume once whipped. I never knew evaporated milk whips so well, just like whipping or heavy cream. While I was putting together the rest of the ingredients, I up this bowl in the freezer. More cooler the milk & the bowl, the easier it is to whip.
• Puree blueberries and keep aside.
• Whip the milk for 2 – 2 ½ minutes, I used my hand held mixer. If using a standing mixer, it takes 30 – 40 seconds.
• Add sugar and whip until sugar is nicely incorporated.
• Add vanilla extract and mix it.
• For blueberry flavor, add the blueberry pulp and whip until well mixed.
• If using an electric ice-cream maker, rest of the steps can be skipped. According to Random Recipes, if using an ice-cream maker transfer whipped milk to the ice-cream maker and churn for an hour, transfer to freezer safe container with lid and freezer.
• Put the bowl in the freezer and let it freeze.
• An hour later, pull the bowl out of the freezer and whip it again for another couple of minutes. If using a stand mixer, mix for 1 minute. Put it back in the freezer.
• Repeat the above step 3 more times every one hour. We will have to whip it 4 times including the above two steps. (I only whipped it for three. I whipped first time after 1 hour and the second time after 2 hours. It was late by then and the third time I whipped next morning. By then ice-cream was all set. I left it on the counter top for 10 minutes and whipped it. )
• Transfer to a container and freeze.

Recipes I posted this day in 2012: Melon Salad

Recipes I posted this month in 2008, in 2009, in 2011 and in 2012.

Blogging Marathon: To know more about the various themes and participating bloggers for this marathon, checkout the blogging marathon page on Srivalli’s blog

Event Entries: Sending this Ice-cream to Recipe Junction’s Spotlight: Summer Fruits