Experiment: Caramel Mocha Latte (vegan!) with homemade cone

First off I'd like to thank everyone for voting for my Matcha Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream in the Foodista book contest! Still a couple of months left of voting, and since I have recently left the world of social media I could really use your help! If you could just follow the directions on the sidebar, I would love you foreverrr!

Now onto the important stuff!

Having not purchased groceries in about a month, I have been having ice cream experiment withdrawals again. With all my business planning for the future Zoey's Ice Cream Cafe I have been in major research mode trying to find the very best recipes for vegan ice cream base. Of course, I can't remember where I found this information (if I did I would credit, I promise!), but in the midst of all my searching I found a beautiful concept: Cashew based ice cream. What? Uh..yeah. Basically, you soak cashews in your desired liquid (coffee, tea, juice, milk, fake milk, whatevah) 1:1 ratio, add some sweetener, additional flavoring, allow to soak for 4 hours, and blend. It makes this amazingly milky base that is absolutely incredibly. No joke. Luckily, I happened to have everything I needed right in my cupboard!

Of course, when I get an idea in my head, I can hardly wait more than 10 minutes before I do something about it, so my ice cream had a slightly different texture...however, being so minor of an issue, I have zero doubt that the texture would be been amazing had I given the cashews the full 4 hours to absorb the liquid. Don't be an anxious-Agnes like me, give it the full four, you won't regret it.

Even though cashews don't have a tremendously overpowering flavor, I still wanted to try out one of my more powerful ideas on this base. What is more intense than coffee and chocolate, right? I manipulated the original 1:1 ratio to suit my needs- because I wanted to get the milky aspect of the "latte" into the ice cream.

Caramel Mocha Latte "Ice Cream"

2c. whole cashews
1c. brewed coffee- hot
1c. sugar (add this to the hot coffee, especially if using raw sugar)

stir together until sugar has dissolved and whisk in the following ingredients

1c. almond milk (this would be amazing with soy creamer or hazelnut milk as well!)
1/2c. cocoa powder
1T chocolate liquor (you may use vodka if you don't have chocolate liquor handy)

cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

While the base is soaking, you can make the caramel. I recommend using the caramel recipe at A Vegan Ice Cream Paradise , however, for convenience sake I just used the almond milk (or whatever milk you plan to use) and I also left out the arrowroot. Allow to cool.

After the base has soaked for four hours, put in blender and puree until cashews are full pulverized. You should hardly be able to see little specks of cashew- this could take a few minutes. Strain the mixture, but do not push the grounds through the strainer- simply allow the liquid to pass through (you may stir the contents of the strainer to allow liquid to pass through, just don't force the cashew pieces through the strainer). Churn for about 15-20min or until relatively firm. Turn of your machine and gently fold in your chilled caramel. Freeze overnight or until firm.

I really wanted to serve this one in cones, but have never had any luck with them. I found a recipe at Cupcake Project and decided to make it my own by veganizing it

Vegan "Pancake" Cones

1 C almond milk (or other milk substitute)
1 1/2 C powdered sugar
1 1/2 C all-purpose flour
1/4 t ground cinnamon
Pinch ground allspice
1 T cornstarch

Whisk all ingredients together and allow to sit for about 15-20min.

For the actual cookery of the cones, I didn't have the spare funds to invest in a waffle-cone-maker so decided to make a "pancake cone," if you will, by pouring the batter into a very hot cast-iron pan. I know it would turn out better in a real waffle iron, but this certainly worked fine! If you choose this method, just make sure you spread the batter as thin as humanly possible, and be careful not to tear the cone when you flip it. They are a little thicker than the standard cone but they are also mighty delicious.

All in all, I would consider this a major "check" in the success column! I think I will conducting a lot more cashew-based expirements this summer! AND! I officially have my first recipe for Zoey's :D

Vegan Experiment: White Chocolate Almond Ice Cream (Coconut Milk Base)

My frustrations with soy milk bases drove me to choose another dairy-free option: coconut milk. I had never worked with it before, so while shopping I wasn't sure if I should use pure canned coconut milk or the drinkable coconut milk beverage. I could see the advantages to both:
Canned Coconut Milk: Essentially as pure as I'd be able to get it, naturally thick, cheapcheapcheap
Coconut Milk Drinking Beverage: Closer consistency to real milk, less coconut flavor
So I got both. This is an experiment after-all! After much conversation with folks, I decided on white chocolate-almond as the flavor.

I melted the white chocolate and folded in the canned coconut milk. It still tasted a LOT like coconut so I added another bag of white chocolate. It. Was. GOOP. Slimy, sticky, tasty goop. Goop that refused to freeze. It wasn't til I looked over my equation that I realized what had happened....my white chocolate content was DOUBLE that of my coconut milk! Oh, the embarrassment! AND the frustration! I had finally gotten it to the point where I could actually TASTE the white chocolate! For that reason, I decided to thin it out using the coconut milk beverage. That way I could get it to the proper consistency without compromising the white chocolate-y flavor I was aiming for. The third churn was finally a success resulting in a relatively creamy (yet still mildly ice-y...I blame the drinking beverage) final product.

In the future, I think I will stick with just the canned coconut milk and create a flavor combination that will either a) better mask the coconut flavor or b) compliment the coconuttiness. I have a feeling that if I had used dark chocolate I would not have run into this problem.

Here is the post-goop recipe (with some edits upon taste-test):

White Chocolate Almond Ice Cream

2- 12 oz bags White Chocolate Chunks
2 cans Coconut Milk
1 quart Coconut Milk Drinking Beverage
1/3 cup Agave Nectar
2 c. Toasted Sliced Almonds

In a double boiler, melt white chocolate with agave. Mix in coconut milk and coconut drinking beverage. Cool. Churn. During the last 3 minutes, add the cooled toasted almonds. Freeze until firm and enjoy!

Experiment: Vegan Carrot Cake Ice Cream

The past few days my mind has been a-flurry with ice cream inspiration. Flavor concepts, plating ideas, scoop & sweet pairings, I even drew out a potential logo for my future ice cream shop! All in all it has been the brain-waves that I have been dying for lately. I was in a super rut, and now it feels like I'm in four-wheel drive and gettin' outta the mess!

I began my come-back with two experiments. The first was an all-vegan version of my Matcha Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream (Please remember to rate my recipe!) which actually did not turn out well at all. The mint overpowered everything and for some reason it came out very gritty. My second experiment was a new concept for me: Vegan Carrot Cake Ice Cream. I had it all worked out in my head...The base would be freshly grated carrots soaked in soy milk, mixed with date paste, agave, cinnamon, and fresh ginger. The final product would be round balls of ice cream coated in crushed walnuts...YUM!

The flavor turned out spot on...the texture, however, could use some work. I found out the hard way that soy milk is pretty much water. It makes the ice cream incredibly icy and impossible to scoop even WITH stabilizers and alcohol! What stabilizer did I turn to, you ask? Well...I made my own! I was disappointed in all of the options presented to me, so I decided to use my BFF science to my own advantage. Of course there is no way for me to tell if it worked yet because the soy milk pretty much nullified any chance, but here was my theory.

I blended fenugreek seed, kuzu root, and flax seed together in a specific ratio until it created a powder (each of those ingredients has emulsifying and thickening qualities while also being incredibly healthy for you) and mixed it with enough water to create a paste. For the sake of this recipe I am leaving the stabilizer out and switching in soy creamer. Of course, I do not know yet if that will help with the texture, but if it is still super hard- just leave it out for a little bit :P

Vegan Carrot Cake Ice Cream

1qt soy creamer
4 ea. dates (blended to a paste)
1/4c. silken tofu
1/4c. agave
1t. cinnamon
freshly grated nutmeg to taste
2ea. peeled carrots (freshly shredded with microplane- separated)
1t rum
1/2c. chopped walnuts

In a blender, combine silken tofu, dates, and soy creamer. Over very low heat, mix together date mixture and agave until combined. Add spices and 3/4 of the shredded carrots. Allow to sit overnight. Strain carrots out of mixture, add rum, and churn until thick. During the last 5 minutes, add the remaining shredded carrot. Store in a freezer proof container. When serving, scoop ice cream into balls and toss in chopped walnuts. Top with some dairy free whipped cream or vegan cream cheese frosting for extra authenticity!

Discovery: Vegan Peanut Butter Gelato

I found what seemed to be an intelligent and simple recipe peanut butter gelato and decided to try it out. I have been finding it incredibly odd that peanut butter cannot be used as a fat in the ice cream process, because that's quite literally what it is. Instead, peanut butter commonly makes ice cream hard and annoyingly difficult to scoop.

The recipe tastes awesome, but you have to wait like 15 min before scooping...not my favorite situation. I would like to be able to make a peanut butter ice cream that it just as smooth and soft as any regular vanilla ice cream. In order to do that I am going to have to utilize more fat in a way that will offset the odd chemistry of the peanut butter. Which will be incredibly difficult if I still want to make it vegan.

Vegan Peanut Butter Gelato
2c. soymilk
1/4c. brown sugar
1/4c. peanut butter







Combine all ingredients in a bowl and strain. Freeze mixture for about 10 min before churning. Pretty. Freaking. Easy.

I'm wondering if maybe it would be softer if I made peanut butter banana or some other combination instead. Maybe the addition of other ingredients would cancel out the awkward peanut chemistry...though realistically I think it would just make the desired outcome more difficult to achieve. I've seen a few recipes that add cream cheese which must soften up the peanut butter, but that wouldn't work in a vegan recipe. This is one that I'm going to have to play with a bit, but I definitely don't think it is going to be impossible. I also have a few more raw/vegan ice cream recipes up my sleeve to try out at a later date so you might wanna stay tuned.

Discovery: Vegan Triple Chocolate Ice Cream

With my recent addiction to soy milk, I wanted to try making dairy-free ice cream. Again, being big on utilization, I tried to find the recipe that had most of what I had at home. I ended up finding Ice Cream Freaks' chocolate soy ice cream recipe, and played around with it.

My theory was that the thickness of my dairy-free organic chocolate syrup (which is MUCH thicker than Hershey's) would partially make up for the thinness of my vanilla soy milk that had replaced the soy creamer called for in the recipe. Sure, it might be a ridiculous assumption, but this is science...you try it out, and if it doesn't work? Try again!

While checking my ingredients to be sure that they were dairy-free (and...as it turns out...vegan!), I took a glance at my dark chocolate chunks that I had purchased for my Matcha Mint ChocoChunk experiment. I literally shouted because GUESS WHAT? I can eat them! For those who don't know, I have an obscure, ridiculous chocolate allergy that means I can't eat cocoa powder, but CAN have chocolate liquor and cocoa butter. I think I might revise this recipe at a later date to incorporate more Kelly-friendly chocolatey goodness :) Also, while one might thing it would be more beneficial to use chocolate soy milk, I think it would have over-chocolatafied the recipe.

Vegan Triple Chocolate Ice Cream

ice cream base
1 pint vanilla soy milk
1/8 c. brown sugar
1/8 c. raw sugar
1/4 c. cocoa powder
1/4 c. dairy-free organic chocolate syrup
3/4 t. vanilla extract
1/4 c. dark chocolate chunks

chocolate ripple
1/2 c. dark chocolate chunks
1/4 c. vanilla soy milk

In a blender or food processor, combine all ingredients except chocolate chunks. Blend until fully incorporated. Churn in ice cream maker until thick, approx 30 min. While ice cream is churning, cook soy milk and chocolate chunks in a double boiler until the chocolate is completely melted and thinned by soy milk. Set aside to cool. Once ice cream base has gotten thick, add chocolate chunks and allow to incorporate. Stop machine, and fold in chocolate sauce until swirled into ice cream. Put in freezer proof containers and freeze until solid.

I paired this ice cream with a raspberry coulis (made with agave instead of sugar) which balanced the sweet and bitter quite nicely. I think that without a berry-centered sauce, the ice cream might be too bitter for some people.