GAPS Frozen Custard 3 Ways

Not only do treats exist on the GAPS diet, but GAPS frozen custard can be made out of core healing foods. In fact, you could eat this particular healthy frozen treat every day! Much like a simple, healthy ice cream recipe, this is my variation on the GAPS Russian custard. It is meant to both taste delicious and be a nutrient dense recipe you can make easily and serve happily!

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Do you love ice cream? Are you considering the GAPS diet and wondering how you (or your family) will do without treats, such as ice cream? What if you could have a treat so much like ice cream that you wouldn’t feel deprived? And said treat was packed with GAPS core healing foods?

Well, here you have it! If you have been looking into GAPS recipes, you have probably run across recipes for Russian custard. Typically made of nothing more than egg yolks and a little honey, you can add Russian custard as you move through the GAPS intro diet, provided you can eat eggs.

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When we first tried Russian custard, I froze it. We liked it, and it definitely seemed like a treat on GAPS intro.

However, I was going through a lot of expensive eggs. Not to mention that those Russian custards seemed kind of small.

At the same time, my daughter isn’t a fan of cultured dairy. I sought a way to get her eating it without actually torturing her.

So, I added cultured cream, or GAPS sour cream, to our Russian custards. We have been eating GAPS frozen custard almost daily ever since, even after we stopped strictly following the GAPS diet. They are delicious, nourishing, and easy to make!

Wait, you are eating raw egg yolks?

Yes, every day for the past 2 years! If you have read the GAPS books, you will understand the reasons for eating raw egg yolks, and why and how it is a perfectly safe habit.

If you aren’t, the raw egg yolks could sound a little scary. Definitely off-putting!

Sadly, so much of what we have been taught about food, nutrition, and health is either flat-out false or a nebulous mixture of truth with falsehood. Raw eggs are one of those mixed areas. There is some risk in eating raw eggs, mainly when the eggs came from conventionally raised hens who were confined, fed the wrong things, heavily medicated, and thus unhealthy birds. Unhealthy birds produce less healthful eggs.

The risks of salmonella and other illnesses from eating the lowest quality of raw egg may be seriously overblown. The risks of eating raw eggs from healthy chickens are dramatically lower. How many times have you tasted cookie dough with raw egg in it? How often did you get sick?

Then, if you choose pastured eggs, ideally from a local farmer, the risk is nearly nonexistent.

I don’t use the cheapest grocery store eggs often, but if I end up with some, we don’t eat them raw. I stick with pastured eggs as much as possible, but especially for raw use.

Demystifying egg labels:

• The cheap eggs (labelled grade A sometimes) are the lowest quality egg– kept in cages, fed grain and soy based feed, heavily medicated because they are disease prone due to their bad living conditions, and otherwise treated poorly.
• Cage free eggs are about the same, as the hens aren’t in cages but may well be fed the same and just as packed together and unwell.
• Free range is only a little better, as the feed and medication may still be the same and the hens may get just a few minutes of outdoor time.
• Organic eggs come from hens with somewhat better feed and less medication, but not necessarily living outdoors and likely still eating feed that isn’t meant for chickens.
• Pastured eggs are supposed to come from hens that lived outdoors and were able to eat bugs, worms, and normal chicken things. They might also be eating feed made of grains, soybeans, and such, though.
• The very best would be if you could buy eggs from hens who lived outdoors, weren’t medicated, ate normal hen foods, and didn’t get grains and soy.

Another detail to be aware of is that the risk of salmonella isn’t from the egg itself; salmonella is on the shell. If your egg was washed (as grocery store eggs in the U.S. have been), you are unlikely to end up with salmonella. For more about eating raw egg yolks, read this article or this one.

If you search on the Internet, you will find many scary articles about raw egg consumption; they are not talking about high quality eggs, though.

So what are the benefits to eating raw egg yolks?

Eggs, though badly maligned for awhile due to the cholesterol-is-dangerous myth, are making a comeback. They are very nutritious, not to mention affordable, easy to prepare, and tasty. The yolk is where most of the nutrition is found, whether you cook the egg, eat it raw, or partly cook it, as in cooked eggs with runny yolks.

Here are some of the goodies found in egg yolks:

• lecithin
• choline
• other B vitamins
• vitamin D
• retinol (the form of vitamin A you can use)
• omega 3 fats
• vitamin K (it its useful form)
• protein
• calcium
• selenium
• magnesium
• potassium
• iron
• phosphorous
• zinc

These benefits are found in cooked egg yolks, but more so in raw egg yolks, which are easily absorbed in the gut. Easy absorption is good, especially for anyone with health issues! Read more here about the nutritional benefits of eating egg yolk.

How to make a delicious frozen treat based on Russian custard

First, make a Russian custard. With only 2 ingredients, it is the simplest treat ever!

Put some pastured egg yolks into a bowl. Beat them very well.

Ideally, you would do this for 20 minutes or so! If you have a stand mixer, you are in luck. If not, do what you can with your hand mixer. I rarely beat them longer than 3-4 minutes, and sometimes not even that long! The egg yolks will lighten in color and increase in volume as you beat them.

Add in a little raw honey (itself a superfood!). You need very little– less than 1 teaspoon per serving. You can use even less if you are trying to limit honey.

If you want, you can flavor your custard– a little vanilla, vanilla bean seeds, or vanilla powder, or the juice of a lemon. If you aren’t on the GAPS diet, you could add chocolate powder. Use your imagination!

To make a GAPS frozen custard, add cultured cream! To 6 egg yolks, I add about a cup of home-cultured cream to serve 4 people. You can easily culture your own cream (see instructions). If you aren’t on the GAPS diet, you could use store-bought sour cream. Mix it well, then pour into serving cups and set them in the freezer for a couple of hours.

If your treats freeze hard, take them out and they will be spoon-able after 10 minutes or so.

Alternatively, you could process your custard in an ice cream maker or pour it into popsicle molds for the same treat in a different format.

Won’t I end up with an awful lot of egg whites?

Yes, you definitely will! While some people throw them away or feed them to their chickens, I hate to waste food, especially good quality ingredients. Some ideas for what to do with all those egg whites:

• make meringues, GAPS style if needed
• try egg white wraps– a substitute for tortillas, once you master the technique
• I can’t vouch for this personally, but people (ladies, mainly!) report benefits from egg white masks for the face– here are some variations for different skin types– I’m not too sure about this one…
• I have other recipes that use up egg whites, like pumpkin bread
• or chocolate banana muffins with coconut flour (leave out chocolate if you can’t use it yet)
• or chocolate banana muffins with almond flour (can leave out the chocolate)

Make GAPS Frozen Custard Your Way!

You can tinker with the recipe quite a bit. Here are some ideas:

• Leave out the cream entirely. This is a Russian custard. It is still delicious and healing, and you can still flavor it as you choose.
• Reduce the honey; you can leave it out, but you might not love the taste if you do. Or use some other sugar or sugar substitute if not on GAPS.
• Experiment with different flavors– the chocolate isn’t really a GAPS food, but you could try cinnamon, gingerbread or pumpkin pie spices, fruits, peppermint, peanut butter, or anything else that you can think of that suits your dietary needs.
• Try other formats– process in an ice cream maker or pour into popsicle molds and freeze. You can also eat Russian custard without freezing, but I think it is better frozen.

Can I make GAPS Frozen Custard without Eggs?

Not really, unfortunately. The egg yolks make it custard.

However, you can make something similar. My son had severe egg allergy when we started GAPS. Six months into the GAPS diet, he could have eggs baked into things like muffins or cookies. We are still nervous about adding raw egg yolk to his diet, even though he doesn’t react to a small bite of cooked egg yolk or a drop of raw egg yolk on his skin. Maybe soon!

Here is what I made for him when we had our pretty-much-daily GAPS frozen custard:

Into a half cup of home-cultured cream, beat a half teaspoon or so of honey and anything you want to use to flavor it. Vanilla is good, and so are fruits like berries or pumpkin purée with some pumpkin spices. Cocoa powder is great, though GAPS-unfriendly, especially with a little peppermint! Refrigerate and eat like a pudding.

What about dairy free?

You can simply leave out the cream. Then you are back to the old Russian custard recipe, which is delicious.

You could use some sort of non-dairy cultured cream, like maybe coconut yogurt or cultured coconut cream. Cashew cream might also work. I haven’t tried these, though.

Now you have a very simple dessert you can feel really good about making part of your nutritional healing plan while also delighting anyone who gets to eat some!