How to Make Healthy Cultured Vanilla Ice Cream

Ice cream might be the ultimate summertime indulgence! A favorite for sundaes, root beer floats, topping for pie, crisp, cobbler, or brownies… or simple, vanilla goodness all on its own. This vanilla ice cream is also nutrient dense, naturally sweetened, and gut healthy. Whether you follow the GAPS or non-GAPS options, everyone will love this GAPS vanilla ice cream, and you will love how quick and easy it is to make.

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There is nothing plain about a really good vanilla ice cream. Made with good quality ingredients, and especially a good vanilla, this is a delicacy on its own.

Mind you, it is also good in combination with other flavors– fruit pie or crisp, chocolate sauce, root beer, fresh berries, birthday cake… so many possibilities!

What Makes This GAPS Friendly?

• cultured dairy
• raw honey
• real vanilla
• optional raw egg yolks

While I developed this recipe with the GAPS diet in mind, people who are not following the GAPS diet can also enjoy it! The cultured dairy adds depth to the ice cream flavor. In my opinion, the taste is better with at least part of the dairy cultured. However, for anyone not on the GAPS diet, the ice cream works and tastes good using fresh dairy products as well.

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How to Make GAPS Vanilla Ice Cream

If you are following the GAPS diet, you are already familiar with the process of culturing milk and cream. You can use either kefir or yogurt for the “milk” half, and creme fraiche, sour cream, or kefirized cream for the “cream” half.

If you are not following GAPS, you could:

• use fresh milk combined with cultured cream
• use fresh cream combined with kefir or yogurt
• use both fresh cream and fresh milk
• use a sugar other than honey (evaporated cane juice, maple syrup, etc.)

Whether you use the GAPS ingredients or not, the process is identical:

Measure the kefir (or yogurt or fresh milk), honey (or sugar), vanilla, and salt into a bowl or blender. If you are including egg yolks, add them now as well.

Mix with a whisk or hand mixer (or use a blender or food processor) until the mixture is very smooth.

Add the cultured cream (or fresh cream) and mix until it is also smooth.

*Pro tip: do the cream last and mix as little as possible! If you beat the cream too much, you could get little bits of butter in your ice cream. It will still taste good, but the texture is quite off-putting. I once made this mistake, but you don’t have to!

Follow your ice cream maker’s instructions to churn and freeze the ice cream. I have used this ice cream maker for over 10 years and it is still going strong. If you can score one from a thrift shop, do it! It isn’t there because it is a bad machine– it is easy to use, works well, and has been durable with heavy use.

Remove to a container with a lid to put in the freezer if not eating right away.

Make GAPS Vanilla Ice Cream Your Way

• You can use coconut milk, coconut yogurt, and/or coconut cream to make ice cream. Just use the same amounts.
• Honey is the way to sweeten this ice cream on GAPS, but other sweeteners will work if you aren’t following GAPS. Honey helps the ice cream become less hard in the freezer, so if you plan to scoop it much later than you make it, you may prefer honey for that reason as well.
• Egg yolks also help keep the ice cream a bit softer and easier to scoop later on. They make the ice cream a bit richer and more creamy looking as well. Make sure you have high quality, pastured eggs for maximum food safety. I usually don’t use them due to a family member who hasn’t gotten far enough past egg allergy to eat them raw quite yet (though he was able to add eggs in baked and cooked forms after awhile on GAPS!). If you can use them, they will make your ice cream extra delicious and nutrient dense.
• It doesn’t really need to be 6 egg yolks. More or fewer will be fine.
• I use vanilla extract, either store bought or I have a bottle I brewed at home. I pretty much followed these instructions, except I let it brew for 18 months. It is delicious! Vanilla powder or some scrapings from a vanilla bean could stand in for the vanilla extract if you prefer.
• If vanilla is not going to work for you at all, you can still make this recipe and leave it out. It won’t taste like vanilla, of course, but it will still be sweet, cold, and creamy, and delicious with toppings and such.

Serving Suggestions

You probably don’t need ideas for what to do with vanilla ice cream, but just in case you do…

• top with fresh berries, peaches, cherries, or other fruit
• drizzle with chocolate or fruit sauce
• scoop onto pie, fruit crisp, brownies, etc.
• add a bit of espresso for an affogato (ice cream drowned in espresso)
• make root beer floats, possibly using my (sadly not GAPS friendly) root beer water kefir
• spritz with fresh lemon juice (I know this may sound weird, but I was glad I tried it even though I found it weird– so simple and refreshing)
• just eat it all by itself– it tastes great all on its own!

Feel like more healthy-ish ice cream? Check these out:

Chocolate Ice Cream

Chocolate Ice Cream Variations

Banana Split Ice Cream

Pumpkin Ice Cream

Banana Bread Ice Cream