This recipe for raw chocolate ice cream is much healthier than even the best gourmet brands at the store. Legal for gut healing diets too!
Raw chocolate ice cream is an occasional treat in our home for special occasions or holidays.
When I take the time to make a quart, I make sure that it is as wholesome and nutritious as possible.
The best way to do this is to use unpasteurized grassfed cream from a local farm.
If you do not have this gourmet product available, you can separate cream from raw milk instead. It is simple to do using a turkey baster!
In a pinch, you can use pasteurized cream (this brand is acceptable), but the beneficial enzyme and probiotic rawness of this recipe will be reduced to the egg yolk portion only.
It is advisable to avoid using ultrapasteurized (UHT) cream. This product is processed at such high temperatures that it is completely denatured. This is the type of cream favored by commercial brands.
No wonder you can’t stop eating commercial ice cream…it isn’t filling when made with ultraprocessed cream. The satiation mechanism in the brain is slow to respond to denatured food.
Besides the overeating problem, eating ultraprocessed foods like UHT cream triggers incomplete digestion. This creates the perfect breeding ground for pathogens in the gut to thrive.
Preparation Tips
The best brand of chocolate ice cream that I’ve seen that is widely available is Haagen Dazs. The only ingredients are cream, skim milk, cane sugar, egg yolks, and cocoa powder.
You can really dial up the “healthy” on chocolate ice cream if you make it yourself, however!
Bonus: You will find that homemade chocolate ice cream is much more filling and you eat much less!
Using grassfed cream alone with no backside bulging skim milk is the first big substitution.
Using a whole sweetener instead of refined cane sugar is another big improvement.
Finally, using raw egg yolks versus the pasteurized eggs from the factory completes the transformation.
Note that this recipe uses all cream with no milk. This is necessary to comply with the full GAPS diet.
If you are not on GAPS and would like the ice cream to be a bit less rich, feel free to substitute up to half of the cream with full-fat raw milk.
Suggested Sweeteners
I developed this recipe for my husband who is on the regular (least restrictive) GAPS diet (after several years on GAPS Intro).
He absolutely LOVES IT.
The only sweeteners allowed on this protocol are honey and fruit due to their simple molecular structure which is easy to digest.
Thus, date syrup would be the best sweetener for this recipe for anyone who has compromised digestion. You could use raw honey, but it does not mix as well.
If you are not on GAPS, I would suggest maple syrup as another excellent option.
No exaggeration … this ice cream tastes better than Haagen Dasz chocolate ice cream when fruit-sweetened just with the date syrup. It is so much healthier too!
I encourage you to try the recipe below as is with no substitutions the first time and see what you think.
Cocoa, Cacao or Carob?
I recommend cocoa powder over cacao for this recipe.
The reason is that cocoa powder is fermented and then roasted and therefore lower in antinutrients such as phytic acid.
I don’t mean to suggest that cocoa powder is low in phytic acid. However, roasted cocoa powder is certainly lower in this potent antinutrient than raw cacao.
As such, this treat is reserved for the “on occasion” menu plan!
If you are sensitive to cocoa, feel free to use carob powder instead.
Note that carob is more bitter than cocoa, so you might need to increase the sweetener a bit to compensate.
Roasted cocoa powder (not cacao) is permitted on the full GAPS diet (not Intro) once symptoms have resolved.
Raw Chocolate Ice Cream Recipe
How to make homemade RAW chocolate ice cream using only wholesome ingredients that is far healthier than even the organic or premium brands at the store.
Ingredients
- 3 egg yolks preferably pastured
- 3 cups raw cream
- 1/3 cup cocoa powder *not cacao
- 1/2 cup date syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
-
Wash eggs in warm soapy water and pat dry with a clean towel.
-
Crack and separate eggs into whites and yolks.
-
Beat egg yolks briefly in a large, glass bowl. Tip: Refrigerate the separated egg whites in a small glass container with a lid to make healthy protein cookies later.
-
Mix in the syrup with the yolks and then beat in the cocoa powder until just smooth.
-
Blend the cream gently with the yolk mixture and then stir in the vanilla. Pour the blended ingredients into your ice cream maker. Follow your model's directions for how long the ice cream is churned.
-
When the ice cream is frozen and ready (about 25 minutes for my ice cream machine), pour into a shallow, glass baking dish (for easier scoopability).
-
Serve immediately if soft serve style ice cream is preferred. For harder ice cream, cover the dish with a lid and keep in the freezer for at least 4 hours to fully set.
-
While the vanilla extract helps maintain good scoopability right out of the freezer, leaving the ice cream container on the counter for a few minutes before serving makes the process even easier.
Recipe Video
Recipe Notes
If using carob instead of cocoa, substitute the vanilla extract with chocolate extract.
I want to buy that heirloom cacao since all I have been using is the alkalized per your recommendation but I wanted to know if you have any thoughts on heavy metals in cocoa powder? I have read African cocoa has lower levels of heavy metals vs Peruvian and the one heirloom one is Peruvian. But I would love to know your thoughts.
There’s definitely an issue with heavy metals in chocolate…whether the source is the cacao/cocoa or the processing at the chocolate factories is up for debate.
They are finding heavy metals in many foods and it isn’t the food itself that is the issue, so I would guess the same for cacao/cocoa powder. If you get the whole food alone and make the “chocolate” treat yourself (in this case chocolate ice cream), my opinion is that the risk of heavy metals is low. Even still, this is a treat that should be made and enjoyed only on occasion!!