But how do you get creaminess without the cream?
You’d be surprised what cashews can do, baby! This isn’t an original concept as many a dairy free souls have discovered the value of nuts as an ice cream base, but I’m all about spreading the love. This is a great vegan ice cream to fool dairy fans, and it’s divine with a dollop of peanut butter on top.
Psst, if you’re curious about the stuff that looks like marshmallow fluff stuff, that’s Bryanna Clark Grogan’s marshie fluff (thanks, Bryanna). Talk about fun to make. Talk about sugar high. Talk about… well, I think vegans could talk about marshmallow fluff quite a lot, come to think of it.
Recipe Notes
Okay, so I’ve got one of those annoying frozen drink blenders and the base is pretty much permanently sealed on. This means there’s always a whole load of liquid I can’t get out, especially if it’s a thick blend like this is. Here’s a tip: reserve 60ml (1/4 cup) of the soy milk and after you’ve poured the ice cream base out, chuck the remaining liquid in and swish around to help get the rest of the mix out.
Oh, and if you’ve got a blender which errs on the side of shite and you hate lumpy bits then you can strain the base to filter out any potential cashew hanger-onners.
Dairy Free Chocolate Ice Cream
- Directions/Method
- Grind the cashew to as fine a powder (or paste) as possible in a grinder. If you don’t have one, soak the cashews in hot water for half an hour or for a few hours (overnight even) in the soy milk in order to soften them so they blend smoothly (if you have a vitamix, obviously you can blend diamonds to a fine powder in .000001 seconds, so you can ignore this).
- In a blender, combine the cashew with all other ingredients and blend until smooth, a couple of minutes. Refrigerate until cold (it will thicken considerably). You can eliminate the alcohol if you’d like, but I always recommend it for home freezers because it helps to keep homemade ice cream softer (commercial freezers circulate air better so it’s less of an issue).
- Use the mix as per your ice cream maker’s instructions and freeze.
[miniflickr tags=”the-creamiest-vegan-chocolate-ice-cream”]
Yum! I've read about cashews being a great base for ice cream. I'm looking forward to trying this recipe!
YUMMY! I referenced this recipe on my blog today 😉
Thanks, Ella! You rule 🙂
I searched Google for vegan ice cream recipes. I just made yours and it was uh-may-zing! OMG! So incredible and even my husband who has never cared for a single non-dairy ice cream I’ve brought home from the store LOVED it! He said it was “top notch.” I used Silk Chocolate Soymilk, Dutch Cocoa, skipped the maple syrup because I didn’t have any but I didn’t double the agave. I used coconut butter instead of oil. Next time, I will be quadrupling this recipe. I cannot say enough how awesome this was!
Whoa, thanks for such a glowing review! I’m glad it worked out for you. The base is really easy to play around with for other flavours, too. Or if you want mocha just add a bit of instant coffee or a shot of espresso if you’ve got an espresso machine. I need to try it with peanut butter swirls too…
Thanks for this recipe – it was perfect! I made it with my kids and I just love that I didn’t have to use heavy cream or sugar – I feel so much better about feeding this to my kids than all the other ice cream recipes I found. Thank you!! (and I wonder – you think a small amount of vodka is ok with kids? I did put a drop, but less than you said, because I think that’s such a great tip on how to keep the ice cream soft).
Glad it worked out well! I’m personally okay with that small amount of alcohol and children, but if it’s a concern you could always just remove the ice cream from the freezer 20-30 minutes before serving. Just stick it in the fridge when you serve dinner and it should soften up enough to scoop by dessert time!
I dont like chocolate ice cream but really want to try homemade vegan ice cream, as i’m not a big fan of store bought.
Is there something else i could use instead of the cocoa powder?!
This, like most of my recipes, is fairly forgiving… so you can be pretty experimental. Fruit, flavourings… I couldn’t give exact measurements but I’ve made variants of this a million times with all sorts of different ingredients and they have rarely ended in disaster!
i ll make it without spirit and use hazelnut oil instead of coconut oil. i havent use it before.