Decadent Coconut Vanilla Ice Cream

Every time I eat this ice cream, I can’t believe how good it tastes.

You really have to try this, trust me.

I’ve been playing with ice cream recipes for years, trying to find something dairy-free that tastes half-decent.

I tried soy ice creams, nut milk ice creams, frozen fruit ice creams, but none of them really measured up. (Although I’ll admit, it was fun trying.)

And then I created this. And it tastes SO much better than half-decent.

In fact, it tastes amazingly, shockingly, brilliantly awesome.It’s possible, just possible, that this ice cream tastes better than chocolate. Maybe.

And it gets better. Not only is it dairy-free, but it’s also nut-free as well.

My kids love this ice cream, and eat it almost every day. (Good idea? Who knows. But I can’t resist feeding them good food when they love it so much.)

And when I took some to Christmas lunch last year, all of the kids loved it. Even the fussy eaters went back for seconds.

Kid-friendly and healthy. Awesome.

Did I mention that it’s to die for? Or better yet “to live for”.

OK, reality check. This is still ice cream.

So if you eat this and nothing else all day, every day – which I have definitely been tempted to do – you’ll probably miss out on one or two essential nutrients. Eventually.

But you’ll be happy. And that’s what life’s all about, isn’t it?

Tips

• If you don’t have an ice-cream maker, here are 6 different ways to make ice cream without an ice-cream maker. Essentially, the more you can mix it as it freezes, the creamier it will be.
• You can use coconut cream instead of coconut milk, if that’s what you have on hand, although you may want to dilute it with some water first.
• I’ve found that the brand and fat content of coconut milk can make a big difference to the result. If your ice-cream is not as smooth and creamy as you’d like, try a different brand. My favourite brand at the moment is Spiral Foods‘s low fat organic coconut milk, which has around 6% fat.
• If you’re trying to convert reluctant family members to this ice cream, you can increase the agave up to a 1/3 of a cup to make it sweeter, and then slowly reduce it each time you make the recipe.
• If you don’t have vanilla powder, which is just ground vanilla beans, you can scrape out a fresh vanilla bean or two into the mix, or add another 1-2 tsp of vanilla essence
• Vanilla vodka is made by soaking vanilla beans in organic vodka for a few months, which extracts the vanilla essence. Vodka is not raw, but the small amount of alcohol seems to help keep the ice cream scoopable.
• Guar gum is not raw, but it acts as an emulsifier, which makes the ice cream smoother. I have tried Irish Moss, which is raw, but it wasn’t quite as creamy.
• You can easily double or triple this recipe, if you’re making it for a crowd, but make sure you don’t churn more than the capacity of your ice-cream maker at once.

Take it further

• You can make this recipe mostly raw by making your own coconut milk from fresh, mature coconuts.
• Use Celtic sea salt or Himalayan salt instead of regular cooking salt to add valuable minerals to your ice cream.

Have an awesome day.

And you can thank me later. I’m too busy blissing out on ice cream.