Servings: 12 Prep: 1 min Cook: 15 min Total: 16 min
Crème Anglais is a smooth, sweet and custardy vanilla sauce, probably coming from Ancient Rome who would use eggs as a thickener.
Seen another way, this vanilla custard sauce could also be looked at as … melted Vanilla Ice Cream!
If you were to take this sauce and load it into an ice cream machine … you’d have something wonderful going on (see the center image, below)! It’s a bit heavy and eggy as a vanilla ice cream, but … that doesn’t stop it from being delicious! I personally actually really like it this way. Frozen custards make a great sugar free ice cream!
Normally, the eggs and sugar are beaten together, prior to adding the hot dairy. However, because of the fickle sugar replacements in a sugar free world, I’m changing tradition in an attempt to ensure that the sugar equivalent is truly dissolved. Don’t hate me in the morning!
Note: The third photo is of a partially obscured, but totally … Bread Pudding.
Recipe makes roughly twelve 1/4 cup servings.
Crème Anglaise (Vanilla Custard Sauce)
Print RateIngredients
- 1 cup cream heavy whipping
- 1 cup almond milk unsweetened
- 1/2 cup 'Swerve' or other sugar replacement
- 1 each vanilla bean split lengthwise (or 2 tsp vanilla extract)
- 1 dash salt
- 6 large egg yolks
Instructions
- Combine cream and almond milk in a medium sauce pan.
- Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean. Add the bean and seeds to the milk and cream.
- Bring the milk to a slow simmer.
- Remove the milk from the heat and whisk the sugar and salt into the milk. Make sure it dissolves.
- In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs well.
- Very very slowly, whisk the hot milk mixture into the egg yolks. Whisk quickly, so as to incorporate the hot liquid evenly, without cooking or scrambling the eggs.
- Once the liquid has been incorporated into the eggs, pour the milk-egg mixture back into the sauce pan and return to a low heat.
- Stir consistently until the sauce thickens and coats the back of a spoon with a thick coating. The temperature should be between 165 and 175. Whatever you do, do not boil this mixture.
- Strain the sauce.
- Serve warm or chill!
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* Learn More: More about this recipe and nutrition …
This was REALLY GOOD. I’ve been looking for a way to have homemade ice cream without the sugar and still maintain it as rich as decadent. cream, fruit, and ice cubes in my Vitamix was getting frustrating. Thank you for this. Once frozen, I mixed in fresh pitted cherries and ricotta/pistachio mixture for a canoli inspired SF ice cream and packed it into 1/2 cup mason jars into the freezer. I will keep this site marked and come back for more wonderful ideas!
Lisa … YUM!!! Just … YUM! Sounds awesome! Yep, I have found that the best sugar free ice creams are sugar free custards. The eggs really help the texture. I’m glad you discovered it! 🙂
If I want to make this into an ice cream do I have to put the mixture into an ice cream machine to get the ice cream texture or can I just freeze it? I really want to make this recipe but I don’t have an ice cream machine 🙁
—Reply posted by DJ on 7/25/2016
Hi Horse Girl! You’d need an ice cream machine, unfortunately. HOWEVER! You can make a great semifreddo! You can take the heavy cream and separate it. Place 3/4rs of a cup in the fridge and use the remaining 1/4 of a cup in the sauce, as suggested. The end result will be quite a bit thicker, but still quite tasty. Chill the thicker ice cream base. Once it’s chilled, line a large loaf pan with plastic wrap and set aside. Remove the 3/4rs cup of cream from the fridge and whip it until you have whipped cream. Then, gently fold 1/3rd of the chilled ice cream base into the whipped cream. Then, gently fold another third into the whipped cream. Then, whip the final third into the whipped cream. You should have a fairly thick frothy sauce-like thing. Pour this into the plastic wrap coated loaf pan, then fold the plastic wrap edges over the top of the frothy base. Freeze it. The next day, you can remove from the loaf pan and slice slices off, like slices of bread. Enjoy! 😀