Tuesday 8 June 2010

Vegan Ice Cream

To distract me from how busy I should be on my site - I have been planning a 90th Birthday Party - mine. True, I don't look 90, and indeed I'm not it is a joint thing: DH is 50 and I make up the difference. I got given an ice cream maker for Christmas so I am plotting a lovely buffet with a huge array of ice creams. I started with flavours in keeping with the 1950s theme and made brown bread ice cream and then went off piste.

So in return for GonzoMamas amazing vegan chocolate cake recipe here is my vegan ice cream.
BTW the best vegan chocolate I have found in the UK is Plamil, if you know a better source I would love to hear about it.

Mango and Coconut Ice cream

1 can of coconut milk
A few large spoons of coconut cream
Rice milk
Palm sugar (but ordinary brown sugar would work as well)
One ripe mango

Optional Crunch
Sugar (palm or soft brown)
Cashew nuts (or Boomerangs as Sarita would say)

Whisk the coconut milk in with the sugar then add the coconut milk. Stir in the rice milk slowly until the mixture is looser, similar to single cream. Add to the ice cream machine - if you don't have one pop into the freezer for about an hour. After an hour in the freezer or when the mixture in the ice machine is almost frozen add the chopped mango and stir it all in together.
While you were waiting for the ice cream to freeze put a large handful of cashew nuts into a food processor and blitz until they look like large crumbs. In a pan stir the cashew nut crumbs with a similar quantity of sugar and heat slowly until it starts to melt, slowly increasing the heat - but always keeping control so that you don't burn it. Keep stirring until it is all well combined then pour onto a lightly greased baking tray. Cool then crumble the nut brittle into small pieces.
Add to the ice cream once you have added the mango. This gives the ice cream a lovely crunch.
Eat, enjoy!

If you are out and about on a walk you will notice the elder trees are blossoming. Walking back across the fields with my hands full of elder flowers was glorious, smelling their sweet and slightly earth scent the whole way. I have added the recipe for Elderflower Cordial to my recipes - if you want to join me in making a toast to our wonderful hedgerows.