Chocolate Candy Cane Ice Cream

Chocolate and mint go so well together, and now that candy canes are everywhere, I just had to mix the two. If you want to skip the chocolate for pure candy cane bliss, just follow the recipe variation listed below.

2 c. soy creamer (or any non-dairy milk)
1 c. soy milk (or any non-dairy milk)
¾ c. sugar
1½ c. chocolate chips
2 T. arrowroot
1 t. vanilla extract
2 t. peppermint extract
1 c. chopped candy canes

Mix ¼ cup of soy milk with the 2 tablespoons of arrowroot and set aside.

Mix the soy creamer, soy milk, sugar, and chocolate chips together in a saucepan. Heat gently until the chocolate melts, then bring to a boil. When the mixture has just started to boil, take off the heat and immediately stir in the arrowroot slurry. This should immediately cause the liquid to thicken (not a lot, but a noticeable amount; it will be thicker when it cools).

Add the vanilla and peppermint extracts.

Set the ice cream mixture aside to cool. Freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions. Add the chopped candy canes in the last 5 minutes of freezing.

Variation:

Candy Cane: Omit the chocolate chips. Add an additional cup soy milk.

Prickly Pear Ice Cream

Below you will find two recipes for prickly pear ice cream: the recipe I actually made, and the recipe I would eventually like to make. See, I used to live in Arizona, where I took prickly pear fruit for granted. You could just walk out to your yard (or your neighbor’s) and pick the prickly pears. Now I’m in Seattle and have a great plum tree, but no cacti. My mother-in-law graciously gave me a bottle of prickly pear syrup, which I used in the first recipe below. The syrup would make a great addition to lemonade or margaritas, but sadly tasted more like sugar than prickly pear. (This didn’t keep us from enjoying the ice cream, mind you!) I think if I could find prickly pear concentrate, this method would produce better results.

The second recipe is what I will try to make when I get my greedy little paws on some prickly pears. It will also be a great chance to use agave nectar in ice cream, since you’ll have this whole desert thing going on.

Recipe #1:

2 c. soy creamer, or any non-dairy milk
1 ½ c. soy milk, or any non-dairy milk
¾ c. prickly pear syrup
2 T. lime juice
2 T. arrowroot powder
2 – 4 T. tequila (optional)

Mix ¼ cup of soy milk with the 2 tablespoons of arrowroot and set aside.

Mix the soy creamer, soy milk, prickly pear syrup, and lime juice together in a saucepan. When the mixture has just started to boil, take off the heat and stir in the arrowroot slurry. This should immediately cause the liquid to thicken (not a lot, but a noticeable amount; it will be thicker when it cools).

Set the ice cream mixture aside to cool. After the mixture is cool, stir in the tequila, if using. Freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions.

Recipe #2:

5 - 6 ripe prickly pear fruits
2 c. soy creamer, or any non-dairy milk
1 ½ c. soy milk, or any non-dairy milk
½ c. sugar (or ¼ c. agave nectar)
2 T. lime juice
2 T. arrowroot powder
2 – 4 T. tequila (optional)

Carefully (they have spines!!!) peel the prickly pears and puree in a food processor.

Mix ¼ cup of soy milk with the 2 tablespoons of arrowroot and set aside.

Mix the pureed prickly pears, soy creamer, soy milk, lime juice, and sugar (or agave nectar) together in a sauce pan. When the mixture has just started to boil, take off the heat and stir in the arrowroot slurry. This should immediately cause the liquid to thicken (not a lot, but a noticeable amount; it will be thicker when it cools).

Set the ice cream mixture aside to cool. After the mixture is cool, stir in the tequila, if using. Freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions.

New Non-Dairy Cream!

The Urban Housewife brought my attention to a new non-dairy, soy-free cream! It's called MimicCreme, and the main ingredients are almonds and cashews. You can buy both sweetened and unsweetened varieties. Unfortunately, my cashew allergy prevents me from actually trying this, but it sounds like a winner to me! You could use it to replace some or all of the soy creamer/non-dairy milk in ice cream recipes. You can learn more about it here. If you try it, please leave a comment and let us all know how it is!

Have you voted yet?

More specifically, have you voted for me? The VegNews Awards polls close on September 1, so get your voting action on. Do it for the children. Or, you know, for me. Either way is OK.

Carrot Cake Ice Cream

This ice cream recipe has two awesome results. The first, obviously, is the ice cream. The second is that you have to make carrot cake, and you won’t use it all, so you’ll also have carrot cake! You can eat carrot cake topped with carrot cake ice cream! It’s carrot cake insanity!

I used the carrot cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, but you can use any carrot cake you want. But seriously, y’all, the recipe in VCTOTW is freaking fantastic—absolutely the best carrot cake I’ve ever had. I also use the vegan cream cheese frosting recipe in the book, but I decrease the margarine and increase the cream cheese for a little more zing. Please note that the carrot cake chunks in the ice cream are unfrosted—wait to frost the remaining cake/cupcakes until after you’ve taken out the cake you need for the ice cream.

2 c. soy creamer (or other non-dairy milk)
½ c. soy milk (or other non-dairy milk)
1 8-ounce container vegan cream cheese
¾ c. brown sugar
½ t. cinnamon
¼ t. powdered ginger
pinch allspice (optional)
pinch nutmeg (optional)
2 T. arrowroot
1 t. vanilla
2 c. crumbled carrot cake chunks

Mix ¼ cup of soy milk with the 2 tablespoons of arrowroot and set aside.

Mix the soy creamer, soy milk, vegan cream cheese, sugar, and spices together in a saucepan, and heat. As the mixture is heating, gently whisk the ingredients together to break apart the cream cheese. By the time the mixture starts to boil, the cream cheese should be completely mixed in. When the mixture has just started to boil, take off the heat and stir in the arrowroot slurry. This should immediately cause the liquid to thicken (not a lot, but a noticeable amount; it will be thicker when it cools).

Stir in vanilla extract.

Set aside the ice cream mixture to cool. While this is cooling, line a baking sheet with waxed paper or parchment paper. Spread the carrot cake chunks across the baking sheet and place in the freezer. If you do not freeze the carrot cake chunks, they will crumble completely when you add them at the end of the freezing process. This still produces an awesome ice cream, but if you want chunks of carrot cake in your finished product, you need to freeze the cake pieces in advance.

Freeze ice cream mixture according to your ice cream maker’s instructions. In the last five minutes of freezing, drop in the individually frozen pieces of carrot cake.

Cherry Ice Cream (with Variations)

My first attempt at making cherry ice cream involved a bleak winter day and frozen cherries from Albertson’s. The results were predictably flavorless and rather dismal. Good cherries are essential for cherry ice cream. So this time I purchased fresh, organic cherries and pitted them myself, flinging bright red cherry juice all over the kitchen so that it looked like something you’d expect on CSI, minus Gil Grissom and the little flashlights. The clean-up was a pain, but it was totally worth it. (I personally recommend making the Cherry Almond Delight variation.) P.S. The red food coloring is totally optional, but it makes the ice cream much prettier than the reddish-brown natural cherry color.

2 c. pitted cherries, quartered
½ - ¾ c. sugar, depending on how sour your cherries are
Splash of water
2 c. almond milk (or any non-dairy milk)
2 T. arrowroot powder
1 t. vanilla extract
½ - 1 t. almond extract (optional)
Few drops red food coloring (optional)

Directions:

Place 1¼ cup of the pitted cherries and the sugar in a medium saucepan. Add a tiny splash of water and bring to a boil, stirring to mix the sugar and the cherries. Once the cherries are getting soft and yummy and sweet, pour them into a blender and puree.

Pour the puree back into the saucepan and add the almond (or other non-dairy) milk. Bring the mixture back to a boil. When the mixture has just started to boil, take off the heat and immediately stir in the arrowroot slurry. This should immediately cause the liquid to thicken (not a lot, but a noticeable amount; it will be thicker when it cools).

Add the vanilla and almond extract (if using). Add red food coloring until you’re happy with the shade of pink/red.

Set the ice cream mixture aside to cool. Freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions. Add remaining cherries in the last five minutes of freezing.

Variations:

Cherry Almond Delight: Definitely use 1 teaspoon almond extract. Add ½ cup sliced, toasted almonds along with the sliced cherries in the last five minutes of freezing.

Cherry Chocolate Chip: Add ¾ cup chocolate chips along with the sliced cherries in the last five minutes of freezing.

Dandy Brandy Cherry: Add ¼ to ½ cup cherry brandy after the ice cream mixture has cooled, but before you freeze it.

Frequently Asked Questions

It’s about time I drew up a FAQ, isn’t it? Thought so. So here are the answers to a bunch of questions. Yup.

Q. Do you have any general guidelines or advice?

A. You bet. Check ’em out here.

Q. What kind of texture should I end up with after freezing? My ice cream is too soft! My ice cream is too hard! I want my ice cream to be just right!

A. After you’ve finished freezing the ice cream in your ice cream maker, it’s usually the texture of soft-serve ice cream. You probably won’t eat it all right away, so you can store the rest in the freezer. It will harden. A lot. It’s going to be harder than store-bought ice cream because it’s not whipped around and aerated the way commercially made ice cream is. If it’s too hard to scoop, just zap it in the microwave for ten seconds or so.

If your ice cream is too soft after freezing it in your ice cream maker, you may have fallen to a couple of common pitfalls. First, the colder the ice cream liquid is before freezing, the easier it is to freeze. I usually leave my liquid in the fridge for several hours to overnight. Second, if you have an ice cream maker that utilizes a freezing container that must be frozen first, make sure that it’s properly frozen. My ice cream maker has one of these, and I just leave it in the freezer at all times.

If you want to make the ice cream softer/creamier right of the freezer, you can do a couple of things. The first is to increase the fat content. The more fat the ice cream contains, the softer it will be in the freezer. You can use a non-dairy milk with a higher fat content (e.g., coconut milk), or you can add fat yourself. Adding ¼ cup flax oil is a great way to give your ice cream an omega-3 boost while making it creamier, too. You can use any other oil you like, but if you use flax oil be sure to whisk it in after the cooling period (prior to freezing) because heat can damage flax oil.

Adding alcohol to your ice cream will also prevent it from freezing as hard. If you’ve ever put a bottle of vodka in the freezer before making martinis, you’ve noticed that it doesn’t freeze. So mixing in ¼ cup to ½ cup booze after the cooling period (so it doesn’t boil off) will make the ice cream more difficult to freeze. If you choose this route, be sure to use a flavor that blends well with your ice cream. For example, brandy goes well with chocolate; tequila goes well with lime or lemon; rum is essential for rum raisin. Please note: This will not make you get drunk on your ice cream. You might notice the flavor of the alcohol, but you won’t get tipsy. Bummer, I know.

Q. What about using sweeteners other than sugar? Can I use agave nectar? Brown rice syrup? What about sugar-free ice cream?

A. I like using plain sugar in most recipes because it has a very neutral flavor that won’t influence the overall flavor of the ice cream. If I want a deeper molasses flavor, I’ll use Sucanat or brown sugar, or even molasses. (I even have a recipe for molasses ice cream!) If you have concerns about how “vegan” white sugar is, I would encourage you to first read this, and then if you’re still upset with me for using white sugar (or “evaporated cane juice,” as I do), rest assured that you can find sugar that hasn’t been processed using bone char.

I will probably eventually experiment with brown rice syrup, agave nectar, and maple syrup. In the mean time, if you experiment with any of these sweeteners, let me know how it goes! Your input is valuable!

As for “artificial” sweeteners (or their natural counterparts), I don’t care for these at all, and my husband won’t touch them. So I haven’t experimented with them. But I imagine you could use products like Splenda or stevia to make sugar-free ice cream. Again, if you try any of these, let me know how it goes so I can be better informed!

Q. What kind of ice cream maker should I use? What if I don’t have an ice cream maker?

A. Check out my post on this here.

Q. Can I use agar agar or cornstarch instead of arrowroot powder?

A. I haven’t used agar agar or cornstarch, but you could always try it. (And let me know how it turns out for you!) You could also try skipping the arrowroot completely, especially in recipes that produce a very thick liquid (like my avocado ice cream).

Q. Can I use xanthan gum instead of arrowroot powder?

A. Again, I haven't tried this, but here's what Myra Kornfeld says in The Voluptous Vegan (which has a few awesome ice cream recipes!): "[Unlike arrowroot powder, which must be heated] you need only to blend the xanthan gum with the ice cream base." So I imagine you could skip the heating step altogether, unless you want to make it easier for the sugar to dissolve, and just toss everything together in a blender or whisk it together by hand. If you do heat it to blend the sugar, then I guess you'd just blend/whisk the xanthan gum in at the end with the vanilla.

Q. What is this “soy creamer” you keep mentioning?

A. I am not talking about Coffeemate or those other “non-dairy creamer” powders. Yuck! What I’m referring to are products like Silk Creamer (there are other brands, too, but they are harder to find). It’s basically soy milk with added fat and sugar to mimic the properties of dairy cream or half-and-half. You can find this in the dairy section of the grocery store near the soy milk or the liquid Coffeemate-type creamers.

Keep in mind that you do not need to use soy creamer at all, even if I use it frequently. You can replace it with any non-dairy milk, and if you want that little extra fat, think about using coconut milk instead (or even whisking in ¼ cup oil).

Q. Can I use something other than soy milk?

A. Of course! I personally like soy milk, but you can use rice milk, oat milk, hemp milk, coconut milk, almond milk, hazelnut milk, cashew milk…you get the picture. Each milk with have its own properties (fat content, nutritional information, allergy issues), so choose what you like best and go with it!

Q. What does "c" mean? What about "t"?

A. I finally got around to explaining in this post. Sorry for the delay.

Q. You have won the International Lottery. Please to send assistance and your financial information so we can process your prize.

A. ZOMG really?!?!? w00t!