When I say Extreme Low Carb 7 Minute Frosting, I mean ZERO carbs. It’s light, it’s frothy and it is so yum.  Crazy right?

I came across an old recipe that I’d gotten from my mom for seven minute frosting. Memory brought to mind its’ light, velvety, meringue, marshmallowy texture and I began to wonder about the possibilities of adapting it as a low carb frosting.

I gathered together the likely ingredients. (Don’t you love kitchen chemistry?)

 You might note that there is one rather unusual little packet in the group; unflavored gelatin. Gelatin isn’t in my mom’s original recipe but I wanted to find a way to make certain that the frosting would stand up and keep it’s structure. In the past I’d made a sugary royal icing using gelatin and it seemed like it might just work for my ‘Extreme Low-carb 7 Minute Frosting’ and I decided to give it a try.

Using an egg separator, I separated the white from the yolk of the egg.  Many of you can separate eggs without this little implement by spilling the white into a dish between the shell halves and keeping the yolk in the shell, but I’ve ruined too many egg whites to think I’ll ever learn how. 🙂

Sprinkling the gelatin over 2T. cold water to soften , I and put water on to boil and added the rest of the ingredients to my mixer bowl. I gave the ingredients a few turns to stir them together.

Carefully, I poured the 1/2 cup boiling water into a heat-proof measuring cup and, working quickly, I added the softened gelatin to the very, very hot water and gave it a few stirs to be certain the gelatin dissolved. (Sorry, not enough hands for a photo of this.)

Then I turned the mixer on low and began to trickle the hot liquid down the side of  bowl, so as not to cook part of the egg white alone and have a lumpy mess. I then turned up the speed to high and finished trickling in the gelatin mixture.

(Other recipes I’ve read say this should heat the egg white enough to be safe.  If you’d rather use meringue powder you could give it a try, but I have no experience with it.)

At about the 3 minute mark I began to wonder if it would ever do anything other than look a little frothy.

And then at about 5 minutes it began to get volume.  And I began to get excited.  It. Could. Work!  At eight minutes, it got stiff peaks and I scooped a bit out with my tablespoon.

It stayed on the spoon:

 and stayed!

After I got over the surprise of looking at the glossy thickness of it clinging to the spoon, I tasted it.  Good, very good.

This Extreme Low-carb 7 Minute Frosting has a lighter texture than I recall of it’s sugary cousin. Yet it is impossibly straight-up sweet and marshmallow creamy like the original.

It mounded up in my little bowl with a perfect peak.  I suddenly wished I had cupcakes to pipe it on.

Well no cupcakes…soooo… 🙂

I’m certain this will pipe beautifully.  When using this, frost whatever you’ve made and serve it immediately.  It will cover 12 cupcakes or the top of a 9 x 18 cake.  Enjoy!  Laura

P.S. Post experiment musings: I will admit that even though I used  powdered Swerve I noticed a slight graininess that I hadn’t counted on, but on the bright side it lent an authenticity to the idea of sugar in it.  Maybe I’ll try it half and half with Splenda next time.  Like most meringues it is best used the first day. Left overs should be kept covered and refrigerated.

If you’d rather have chocolate, have a look at my Keto Chocolate Ganache Frosting recipe here.

Nutritional info:

Thanks to the following helps and inspirations:

Happier Than a Pig in Mud

 Coleens Recipes