Ice Cream

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Apparently there are two entirely different kinds of ice cream, and possibly many more.

The first kind is made out of custard; that is, a cooked mixture of egg (or egg yolks, in most commercial recipes) and milk, to which is added sugar, and whatever flavorings are desired, e.g. strawberry, chocolate, pistacchio, etc.  My suspicion is that most complicated flavored ice creams are made this way, e.g. Ben and Jerry's.  This sort is called French Custard, by most writers.

The next kind is described as American Ice Cream, and is made of almost entirely just Cream and Sugar, and of course, flavorings.  This kind is supposedly very delicately flavored, and depends on highly efficient refrigeration methods and electric mixers to keep the ice crystals small.  Big crystals detract from the texture of the ice cream.

Then, of course, there is gelatine and all these gums, e.g. guar gum, Xanthan gum, gum Arabic, Carrageenan gum, and so forth, as well as the sea-weed based gums, all of which are really brilliant ways of reducing the cholesterol and calories that accompany heavy use of cream.  Using these, it is possible to make American style ice cream that thickens at lower temperatures.  That's the ice cream I like; the super-cold, hard as rock ice cream doesn't really float my boat.  I don't know whether these materials are available for ordinary folks, and whether one needs special methods and recipes to use them.  Being diabetic, I'm interested in low-sugar, or sugar-free recipes, obviously, which means yet another means of thickening the ice cream mixture is not available, namely sugar.

The ice cream I made a couple of weeks ago, with heavy cream, egg-custard mixture, one banana, and a single packet of Sweet and Low, was very good.  The recipe is as follows:

Make the custard with one egg and one cup of milk.  (Some folks use a double-boiler for this.)
Immediately cool it down with one cup of refrigerated heavy cream.
Add half a teaspoon of salt, and mix like crazy until smooth.
Add vanilla, and one mashed, not-too-ripe banana.  Mix.  Add Sweet 'n' Low.  Mix.
Put in freezer for half an hour, take out and mix until smooth again.
Repeat until satisfied with the texture; in my freezer, three more times.

It came out wonderful, except that of course I like less sweetened ice cream than most people!  You might like another sweetener, like Splenda or whatever.  Just sweeten until it tastes right to you.