DIY Vegan Ice Cream: Strawberry Chocolate Cookies and Cream
May 14th, 2009 8:20 pm by Kelly GarbatoMy totally awesome mother gifted me a soft serve ice cream maker this past FSMas. It’s a mid-level Cuisinart, the “Cuisinart Ice-45 Mix-It-In Soft-Serve 1-1/2-Quart Ice-Cream Maker.” (You can view the specs here.) Probably this is the part where I should offer a review, but I’ve only used the machine a few times. So far, no complaints: it’s easy to use and clean, works like a charm, and one batch of ice cream is enough for two large servings as well as a pint of leftovers.
Also, methinks the choice of a soft serve machine over a traditional ice cream machine was a wise one, as it offers increased flexibility: if you find yourself craving hard, frozen ice cream, simply make yourself a batch of soft serve and store it in the freezer for an hour or two before serving. Or, mix up several batches at once and store ‘em in the freezer for later. (I knew there was a reason I saved all those Tofutti containers!)
Thus far, Shane and I have only made three batches of ice cream; between the cold weather and the dearth of vegan ice cream (machine) recipes on the internets, we got off to a rather slow start. Now that we’ve got the hang of it, though – thanks in no small part to the blog A Vegan Ice Cream Paradise – I imagine we’ll soon be mixing ice cream like a couple of sweet-toothed mofos.
Our first foray into DIY vegan ice cream came in the form of this banana ice cream recipe from VegWeb.
Super-yummy, though very sweet. I’m sure the extra-ripe bananas didn’t much help on that front!
A few weeks later – once we’d managed to track down some arrowroot at Whole Foods – we made this cookies and cream ice cream, courtesy of A Vegan Ice Cream Paradise.
Again, super-yummy, but awfully sweet. (Also, due to the large cookie chunks, we had to scoop it from the ice cream bowl, lest we clog up the soft serve dispenser. That’s why the first photo looks so much prettier, just so you know.)
For my birthday, we decided to experiment a bit, adapting AVICP’s Cookies and Cream recipe into Strawberry Chocolate Cookies and Cream by using strawberry creme Oreos (instead of the regular Oreos we used previously) and adding some strawberry concentrate for extra flavor. (Strawberries aren’t yet in season here, hence the faux flavoring. I can’t wait to try this recipe with real berries!) We also reduced the sugar by half, and omitted the vanilla, since we used French Vanilla soy creamer.
This was, by far, our yummiest batch of ice cream yet. The ice cream is sweet, without being sickeningly so, and the strawberry creme coupled with the flavoring is quite good. Again, I’m eager to try this recipe with actual strawberries instead of concentrate, but you take what you can get.
Sorry, photo not available. I was in the mood for strawberry ice cream; vegan gourmet photography, not so much. If it helps any, the Strawberry Chocolate Cookies and Cream ice cream looks much like the Cookies and Cream, but with a slight pink hue.
DIY Vegan Ice Cream: Strawberry Chocolate Cookies and Cream
(Adapted from A Vegan Ice Cream Paradise’s Cookies and Cream Ice Cream recipe.)
Ingredients
2 cups soy creamer (we used French Vanilla Silk)
1 cup soy milk
1/4 cup white sugar (give or take; the original recipe calls for 1/2 cup sugar, so adjust according to taste)
2 tablespoons arrowroot
3 tablespoons strawberry concentrate
1 cup crushed strawberry Oreos [Update, 1/17/10: Or not.]
And an ice cream maker!
Directions
1. Mix 1/4 cup of soy milk with the 2 tablespoons of arrowroot and set aside.
2. Mix the soy creamer, remaining soy milk, and sugar together in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from heat immediately and mix in the arrowroot/soy milk “slurry.” This should cause the liquid to thicken.
3. Add the cherry concentrate (and possibly extra sugar, if the mix isn’t sweet enough for you) to taste.
4. Refrigerate the ice cream mix until cold.
5. When you’re ready to make some ice cream, freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions.
6. As the ice cream’s freezing, crush a cup of Oreos with strawberry creme in the center (approximately six cookies).
Prior to crushing the Oreo cookies, I separated the top and bottom halves and scraped the creme off the cookies, setting it aside. Then I placed the cookie wafers inside a plastic sandwich bag and crush them into a rather fine powder with a rolling pin, leaving a few larger chunks intact.
If you prefer larger pieces, you can break them into quarters by hand instead.
7. Add the Oreo pieces (cookies and creme) to the ice cream during the last five to ten minutes of the cycle.
8. Enjoy! (You just made your own vegan ice cream!1!!!!1!)
Since discovering A Vegan Ice Cream Paradise, I’ve also found two cookbooks dedicated to vegan ice cream (Vice Cream by Jeff Rogers and the just-released The Vegan Scoop, from Wheeler del Torro), so hopefully I’ll have more than enough recipes to last through the season. Keep an eye out for additional DIY vegan ice cream concoctions, as well as more cookbook reviews!
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Tags: ice cream
