monkeys and ponies

How this began: I made vegan peanut butter cups for my friend's birthday a couple weeks ago, and the cups were especially recalcitrant about coming out of the molds this time around, leaving me with a bunch of broken ones I couldn't serve. I stuck them in the fridge and figured I could chop them up into ice cream.

Later, I began thinking about how I'd never tried making nonfat frozen yogurt, and how this was marginally better for me than actual ice cream, even if I was still planning on mixing in the peanut butter cups. And that led me to the next problem, which was I knew that given the aforementioned zero fat content in the yogurt, even if I drained it first, I'd end up with a hard, icy rock in my freezer.

Which reminded me of xanthan gum. I have another friend who's allergic to cow milk, but has had excellent luck making coconut milk-based ice creams using xanthan gum to ensure a soft texture. So I figured, why not? Sure, I'd never used xanthan gum before, but it was worth a shot – and a mere $15 later (oof) I now own enough xanthan gum to last me a lifetime.


Step 1: Drain yogurt overnight. I realized later I could have just started with Greek yogurt, and that'll probably be how I do things next time.

Step 2: Discard liquid and mix yogurt with about 1 1/2 teaspoons good vanilla, and 1/4 cup each honey and brown sugar. Mind you, this is what I did, not what I'd recommend for next time around, because I think the final product was just barely sweet enough, and had lost the depth it had at room temperature. I must remember you have to amp up flavors when things will be served cold! Anyway, if I'd had enough time, I'd have experimented with making a brown sugar syrup to use as the sweetener. That's also in the plan for next time.

Step 3: Mix 3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum with about 1/4 cup of milk. I knew from reading other recipes involving xanthan gum that it required a lot of stirring to incorporate; I didn't realize this was because it gums up instantaneously. Eventually, not only did I end up mixing in some yogurt so that I could stir more vigorously, I also pushed the whole mess through a strainer to smooth it out. Lesson learned: stir like a mofo the very first second a drop of liquid hits the gum.

Step 4: Chill until cold enough to put in your ice cream maker.

Step 5: Pour base into ice cream maker and get it going. Chop up peanut butter cups. I found that the yogurt froze more quickly than a custard base -- about 15 minutes instead of 20 -- but once it was ready, I mixed in the peanut butter cups, scraped everything into a plastic container, mixed some more, and stuck it in the freezer to solidify.

Final result: tarter than I'd hoped for, but the texture is pretty much perfect. The real test of xanthan gum's awesome power will be tomorrow, after the yogurt's had time to freeze overnight, but I'm feeling pretty confident I'll still have easily scoopable yogurt.

And hey, the fat-free yogurt totally cancels out the fat in the peanut butter cups, right? Right.