Sugar Free Custard / Ice Cream

I'm often looking for ways to make things without sugar, as my husband is a diabetic.  Custard has always been a bit tricky, but with some experimenting, I've come up with something that works.  I wouldn't call it healthy, but it's certainly less sugary than normal custard, which was the objective!

Ingredients

400g can Coconut Milk
300ml Double Cream
5 eggs
10g Sweetener - this is optional, and the more sweetener you use, the more grainy the texture of your  custard/ice cream will be
1 tsp Vanilla Essence

Method

1.  Place the coconut milk and cream into a saucepan and heat gently.  Keep stirring until you see bubbles just starting to form at the edge of the pan.  Remove from the heat.

2.  Separate the eggs, keeping the yolks.

3.  Whisk the egg yolks until they go slightly pale.

4.  Add the egg yolks a spoonful at a time to the saucepan, making sure to stir in each spoonful until fully combined before adding the next.  (If you do this too quickly, you'll end up with sweet scrambled eggs!) . Keep going until all the egg yolks are combined - it takes a few minutes to do this.

5.  Put the pan back on the heat and heat gently, stirring all the time.  It seems to take forever, but eventually the custard will thicken.  If you're just after custard, pour it over your favourite dessert straight away... I love this just poured over sliced bananas!

6.  If you're making ice cream (or just like cold custard), pour the custard into a bowl and chill in the fridge until cold.  (To stop the custard getting a skin, put some cling film over the surface).

7.  Use an ice cream machine to turn the custard into ice cream.  Alternatively, pour the custard into a suitable dish and put in the freezer.  If you're doing it this way, take the mixture out every half hour or so and give it a good stir - this breaks up any ice crystals that form while freezing.

Sugar Free Lemon and Lime Loaf Cake

I hate baking.  There, I've said it!  Almost every time I bake, it just doesn't come out right.  I get collapsed cakes and stodgy muffins.  They normally taste OK, but they just aren't quite right, know what I mean?

But my husband LOVES cake.  Unfortunately, he is diabetic, and cakes need sugar to give it the texture.  But do they?  After looking at many recipes and tweaking them, I have finally found a cake with no sugar, that even I can bake and comes out right every time.  And as a bonus, it's not bad on the old carbs either.

Also, I have finally discovered the two keys to baking - ALWAYS measure everything very carefully, and ALWAYS pre-heat the oven!

Ingredients

175g Low Fat Spread (or butter, if you can afford the calories!)
30g Granulated Sweetener (I prefer the taste of sucralose sweeteners - usually in yellow packaging)
225g Self Raising Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
3 large or 4 small Eggs (beaten)
3 tbsp Lemon Juice
1 tbsp Lime Cordial

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180℃.  Place the low fat spread and sweetener in a bowl.

2. Stir until they just come together and you can't see any granules left.  With an electric mixer, this only takes a few seconds.

3.  Mix the flour and baking powder together.  Add 2 tablespoons of the flour mixture and one tablespoon of beaten egg and whisk until combined.  Repeat this until all the flour mixture and egg have been combined in the mix.

4.  Add the lemon juice and lime cordial and whisk until combined.

5. Pour the mixture into a lined loaf tin.  I am lazy, and buy pre-made tin liners, but baking paper works just as well, or you can grease the tin with butter.

6.  Bake in the oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour.  It's done if you can stick a skewer in the middle and it comes out clean.  Serve in slices.