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I'm lactose intolerant and recently bought an ice cream maker. I started experimenting with online gelato recipes, since gelato recipes use milk intead of cream, but I use a lactose-free brand of milk. There are two things to keep in mind with lactose-free milk. First, the brand of lactose-free milk that I use is sweeter than regular milk. So I use less sugar than the amount listed on recipes. Second, lactose-free milk has a watery texture when compared to whole milk, which makes for icier/harder ice cream. I started experimenting with different ingredients to thicken the recipe, e.g., gelatin and pectin. I may try guar or xantham gum next since gelatin and pectin haven't yielded the texture that I'm looking for.

Here's the basic recipe that I use (sometimes with less eggs):

Ingredients:
• 8 egg yolks
• 2/3 cups sugar
• 4 cups lactose-free whole milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or more to taste, or a vanilla bean

Beat the yolks with the sugar; when the mixture is a pale yellow slowly stir in the whole milk. Put the pot on a high flame and continue stirring with a wooden spoon until it begins to steam, then reduce the heat to low and continue stirring gently until it begins to thicken and sticks somewhat to the spoon, remove the pot from the fire, let the mixture cool, and make the ice cream in your ice cream maker. If I'm using a vanilla bean, I cut it in half and add it in when heating the ingredients and remove the halves when the mixture is thick enough. Otherwise, I stir in 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract at the end. I also added the gelatin/pectin towards the end of the heating process since they both need heat to activate.

For variety, when the ice cream has almost completely formed in the ice cream maker, I've added crushed Oreos or a crushed Heath bar. I plan on making other flavors eventually but have been focusing on texture first.

I hope that helps.