During a recent cheat, I had Nielson's bigfoot icecream with peanut butter cups and chocolate chunks. It was great, so I decided to make my own low carb version....

Ice Cream Base:

3 Cups Heavy Cream
1 Cup Half and Half (you can use all cream if you like)
1 Vanilla Bean
Pinch of Salt
4 egg yolks
1/2 Cup Xylitol (or some other sugar alcohol like it)
2 tbls Malitol (I just make a mix as you can see)
1/2 Cup Splenda (I used liquid equivalent for less carbs)
1 tbls glycerin
1 tsp Vanilla
1 tbl Peanut Butter (I used carb options, which melts nice)
Package of low Carb Peanut Butter cups
1/4 cup chopped low carb chocolate or candy pieces

Split and scrap Vanilla Bean, add both to cream.
Heat Cream over medium heat, stirring often until it just starts to simmer.
Add Sweetners, salt, and glycerin to egg yolks and whisk until light in colour.
When cream is simmering, add one cup of it slowly to egg yolks while stirring to temper the eggs. Add egg mixture back to rest of the cream.
Stir in the peanut butter to melt it.
Cook mixture over medium low heat until thickens and coats back of wooden spoon.
Strain mixture into a heat proof bowl. Add vanilla extract and stir. Put the bean back in, cover with wrap and refridgerate until cold (at least 4 hours, best over night).

Remove bean and put into ice cream maker as per the machines instructions. In the last five minutes of churning, add in chopped peanut butter cups and chocolate.

Firm up in the freezer for a couple of hours.

Eat it.

Brobin

PS - You can use your own base vanilla icecream recipe, all extract instead of the bean, and even add some quar gum. The key is to get a bit of peanut butter flavor in then add the peanut butter and chocolate...

Is vanilla bean readily available in canada? Here it costs a small fortune for a small jar containing a dried bean

Its not cheap, but we can get it here in Canada, even at the bulk barn. It costs about $5 for a bean or two. Feel free to make it with Vanilla extract, but I decided to go all out and treat myself.

By the way, this ice cream was incredible. It was so smooth and soft. The sugar alcohols make a big difference in the texture. Three days later and you could still scoop it out of the container without even tempering it. Without the glycerin and sugar alcohols, home made low carb icecream is hard as a rock.

I figure the extra carbs from the sugar alcohols are worth it. There is no point in eating crapping ice cream. This stuff really satisfies, so a little goes a long way.

Brobin