Vegan Ice Cream... A nice substitute!

I was so excited when I first received this book to review from Blogging for Books.  Although we are not big ice cream eaters it is something that we enjoy.  I purchased a nice ice cream maker from Costco many years ago and only made one ice cream... since becoming vegan I honestly thought it was time to sell it.  But then I got this book.

My mind began to whirl... not only could my family enjoy vegan ice cream but I could make it from scratch with real ingredients.  So I opened the book.  Most of the ingredients are easy enough to find.  But some seemed daunting... young coconut flesh for example.  But there are many fun variations on everyone's favorite ice creams which is nice to see.

But where to start?  My husband and kids love chocolate ice cream (actually chocolate anything!) but strawberries were just coming into season and I thought that was the best place to start.  The ingredient list for the strawberry was only four items long... awesome!  It was super easy to make.  You basically throw all the ingredients in a blender and put into the ice cream maker.  The verdict was good.  The family enjoyed it but it was not ice cream.  It was a nice vegan sherbet or sorbet.  This was definitely one we will make again.

When it came time for the chocolate I was super excited.  I would love the have a chocolate ice cream recipe on hand so I could whip it up anytime my family asked.  All of this recipes ingredients were in my pantry already so it was easy to throw together.  Unlike the strawberry recipe this one called for cashews.  Many vegan recipes I have encountered use cashews to make a cream sauce so I was used to this.  But I don't think my blender was powerful enough to fully puree them.

After putting it into the ice cream maker I could already tell that the texture would be off.  When it was done I scooped it out for my kids.  The 6 year old loved it but the 4 year old spit it out.  I thought the flavor was spot on but it was a textural thing.  I am sure if I had a Vitamix I would be raving but sadly I do not.

All in all... I think this book has some amazing ideas.  I look forward to branching out and trying many more of them.  I feel some added weight already forming!!