Low-Carb Raspberry Chocolate Chip Parfait

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Could this Low-Carb Raspberry Chocolate Chip Parfait be a perfect summertime dessert? I think it is! With just 5 ingredients you’ll get perfect flavor, rich and creamy, ice cream-like texture with yummy crunchy chocolate chips and that slightly chilly feeling which the hot summer days just cry for, not mentioning the brisk raspberries which are delicious and low in carbs!

But don’t take just my word for it, try it yourself! Be sure to check also the tips for variations in the end of this post for even more delicious ideas…

 

Tips for making the Low-Carb Raspberry Chocolate Chip Parfait

If you are American, “parfait” most probably brings into your mind a layered dessert with some berries and yogurt. In that case I’m sorry to disappoint you: this recipe is for a French-style parfait which is a creamy, frozen dessert resembling ice cream. It’s a perfect recipe to be low-carbified by just replacing regular sugar with sweetener. However, if you are after American-style parfait recipe, no worries, I have you covered as well: prepare some sugar-free raspberry jam or sugar-free strawberry jam, use crumbled leftover low-carb cookies (this is an easy and delicious recipe, so is this one) and some plain yogurt which you can flavor with liquid stevia and optionally with vanilla extract and layer those to a delicious American-style low-carb parfait!

This parfait recipe makes quite a large batch which is great for pleasing a big crowd or for summer parties. You can prepare half a batch if you need dessert for fewer people, let’s say for 6–8 people.

As you know, raspberries contain plenty of seeds – which actually make a nicely crunchy combination with chocolate chips – but if you are not a fan of those tiny seeds, you can purée the raspberries and filter out the seeds before adding to the mixture.

For the chocolate, I recommend very dark chocolate, with at least 85% cocoa. In this recipe chocolate tastes best grated into tiny pieces rather than left into larger chunks. I use a cheese slicer for grating, it’s pretty handy but you just have to be careful not to grate your fingers as well!

After removing the parfait from the freezer, waiting for 15 minutes – or maybe half an hour – really pays off, the parfait will get softer and the flavors and the texture just perfect. Rock-hard parfait straight from the freezer is neither palatable nor easy to eat.

Last but not least, this recipe contains raw eggs, so if you are afraid of using raw eggs, feel free to use pasteurized eggs instead.

But let’s take a look how to make this cool yet elegant summertime dessert:

Place the raspberries in a small bowl (ok, plastic container is equally good!)

 

Add the sweetener. (If you use vanilla extract, add it as well.)

 

Mix really well…

 

…until well mixed. Set aside.

 

Beat the egg whites…

 

…until stiff peaks form. Set also aside for a while.

 

Whip the heavy cream until stiff peaks form…

 

…like this. (We want the parfait to be very airy! That’s why all that beating and whipping.)

 

Add the egg yolks…

 

…one at a time…

 

…and beat well until each addition… (ok, you can cheat by adding the yolks all at once, when I tested the recipe I was once so in a hurry that I just added all yolks at once and didn’t have any problems with that.)

 

…until you get a smooth mixture.

 

Place the cream and egg yolk mixture in a large bowl (if you are not using one already…)

 

Add the raspberries…

 

…and the grated chocolate.

 

Mix with a rubber spatula until smooth. (Looks so yummy that I could eat it straight from the bowl!)

 

Fold in the egg whites.

 

Mix gently with the rubber spatula…

 

…until smooth. Be sure to break all lumps. (To break the lumps, press the lumps against the sides of the bowl with the rubber spatula.)

 

Pour the mixture into a silicone pan or freezer-proof cake pan. (I recommend the silicone pan, the parfait is really easy to remove from that. Silicone tube pan works as well, also the presentation will be beautiful.)

 

Level the surface. Freeze for 6 hours or preferably overnight.

 

Remove the parfait carefully from the pan. Decorate if you wish. Before serving, let stand 15 minutes at room temperature. If you cut slices from the parfait, use hot knife.

 

 

 

 

About developing the Low-Carb Raspberry Chocolate Chip Parfait Recipe

I have a to-do list of recipes I would like to develop and test. Since the weather has been nicely warm, even here in Finland, it would be great to enjoy something cooling and chilly for dessert. On my list, I have ideas for low-carb parfaits, frozen, creamy desserts, almost like ice cream but not quite. One of them was low-carb lemon cheesecake parfait. It sounded like a nice and fresh summertime dessert, so I gave it a try.

I was pondering the ingredients and the measurements. Heavy cream and cream cheese  — perfect high-fat low-carb ingredients — would bring the creaminess and the cheesecake flavor, lemon peel and lemon juice elegant lemon flavor and powdered erythritol would be a perfect sweetener. To enhance the flavors, I could add a teaspoon of vanilla extract.

For my first experiment, I used 2/3 cup (160 ml) heavy cream, which I whipped until stiff peaks formed, mixed with 8 oz (230 g) cream cheese, sweetened with 3/4 cup (180 ml) powdered erythritol and seasoned with grated peel from one organic lemon and the squeezed juice. At last, I added 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. I poured this mixture into a long cake pan prepared with non-stick metal. I thought it is easy to cut slices, and if I run the pan under hot water, the parfait just pops out of the pan almost itself.

At the same time, I was planning another low-carb parfait experiment. I had melted frozen wild raspberries from my freezer since I need to empty it eventually. Summer is coming, and soon there are more berries to pick and freeze. I love raspberries and eat them quite often with yogurt, but last year’s crop was so big that I have still got plenty of wild raspberries left. It’s funny, in some years the bushes are heavy with raspberries while in other years, there are hardly any berries, or just a couple of miserably dry, lonely raspberries here and there. Last year was a great raspberry year.

Raspberries would be perfect for the second parfait experiment. That experiment would differ from the first one; I wanted to try out something creamy but airy. Whipped cream again would bring the richness and this time I wouldn’t use cream cheese because I didn’t want to make cheesecake parfait but just creamy parfait.

 

 

However, how about the lightness? Usually, traditional parfaits contain egg yolks that give more richness, but I was wondering what happens if I also add the egg whites, naturally beaten stiff and carefully folded into the mixture, making it airy and fluffy. More volume with egg whites would mean less carbs as well. I was a bit afraid how the frozen egg whites would turn out, first if they would freeze well, or if they would turn rock-hard or inedibly grainy.

Well, I could find out only by testing my idea in practice. I was pondering the measurements for the ingredients and used 1 cup (240 ml) defrosted raspberries (I didn’t weight them! Usually I do…) mixed with 3/4 cup (180 ml) powdered erythritol. I whipped 1 cup (240 ml) heavy cream and mixed it together with 4 egg yolks. I also beat the 4 egg whites until stiff and folded them into the mixture. Well, that made four ingredients, so I could still use one ingredient to fill the maximum quota of five ingredients. What could that one missing ingredient be…? Vanilla extract? Too boring. Grated lemon peel for raspberry lemon parfait? Meh.

I had grated dark chocolate for my son; he loves to sprinkle it on his morning yogurt, which I sweeten with a dash of liquid stevia and season with a splash of organic vanilla extract. He calls it “cat food” for some reason. So, if you ever hear my son requesting cat food, it’s vanilla yogurt with grated dark chocolate sprinkled on top. Although he has eaten _real_ cat food as he said it tastes delicious, we try to prevent him from doing that, even if it’s premium cat food without cereal or other cheap junk that the cat food manufacturers love to sell to the consumers.

 

 

But back to the recipe development phase! That grated chocolate sounded like a perfect match to my low-carb parfait experiment. Raspberry and chocolate is a heavenly combo, and grated dark chocolate with raspberries and rich, creamy yet airy parfait would just be perfect!

I added 1/2 cup (120 ml) grated dark chocolate to the mixture and poured it into a silicone bread pan and froze with the low-carb lemon cheesecake parfait.

The next day, I excitedly took the pans from the freezer and brought them in. (Our larger freezer is in a storage room in a separate building.) I waited for 15 minutes with the lemon parfait before trying to remove it from the pan, but I was too impatient with the raspberry chocolate chip parfait and just popped it out of the silicone pan completely frozen. Needless to say, I also had to taste the creation immediately. Cutting it was hard, but a sharp knife dipped in hot water did the trick surprisingly well.

I took the first spoonful of the still-rock-hard parfait. My first reaction was pure joy; I think I was even jumping and shouting “Yes!” The parfait was delicious in every way, and the flavors of dark chocolate chips and raspberry created an unbeatable combo. Much to my surprise, the egg whites froze well, giving a light, fluffy texture to the otherwise rich and creamy parfait.

And that low-carb lemon cheesecake parfait? I’m ashamed to confess that it ended up in the trash can. First, I couldn’t remove it from the cake pan no matter how much boiling hot water I used to rinse the pan. Second, the taste was terrible! I wonder if the lemon was spoiled … the taste was old and past its prime, not fresh at all.

 

 

Nutrition information	Protein	Fat	Net carbs	kcal
In total:	37.8 g	136.2 g	30.4 g	1527 kcal
Per serving if 12 servings in total:	3.2 g	11.4 g	2.5 g	127 kcal
Per serving if 16 servings in total:	2.4 g	8.5 g	1.9 g	95 kcal

 

 

Tips for variations

If you are really in a hurry and need a quick but delicious dessert, you can omit the freezing phase and serve the dessert as mousse. It will make a light, cloud-like dessert, which is also a perfect summer dessert. Just be sure to serve the dessert immediately after preparing it, otherwise the egg whites will separate.

Needless to say, you can use other berries instead of raspberries. I just chose raspberries because I love their flavor and they are wonderfully low in carbs (and because I have still plenty of raspberries left in my freezer and I have to make space! What a perfect excuse!)

You can also get creative and use the parfait as filling in crepes…

 

…or in ice cream sandwiches! Here I’ve used strawberries instead of raspberries, my family adores strawberries and they devoured these ice cream sandwiches in no time. Btw, as the cake part I used this muffin recipe but just left out blueberries, added 1 teaspoon organic vanilla extract and replaced heavy cream with melted butter to get crispier texture. I baked the cakes in this ice cream sandwich pan. I also have this pan which I also use often. Both pans are fantastic!

To fill the cakes, cut first thick slices from the parfait and then cut out round shapes (same size than the cakes) from the slices. Easy to make and looks great!