My Cake Batter Brings All The Boys To The Yard!

Cake Batter Ice Cream

Topped With A White Chocolate Nonpareil!

     Disclaimer: Since I haven't actually made a cake batter milkshake, I can't assure the veracity of the above statement, but I can guarantee that this ice cream will bring the boys and the girls to the yard. I'm not sure what that means, but for Utahns, I think this translates into knocking the socks right out of your sandals! I've made this twice for potlucks with excellent results. One taster said was that this is the best ice cream they ever tasted. Needless to say, it's a winner, especially topped with a white chocolate nonpareil! I'll post the recipe below, but you must pledge allegiance to the Jimmie Alliance, if you choose to top the ice cream with something other than a non-pareil, make sure you call them jimmies, not the "S" word!

 Lula's Sweet Apothecary

Double Fisting Ice Cream!

        It's cool enough to have dedicated vegan restaurants, but a vegan ice cream shop is the cherry on top. Sorry, I couldn't resist. Lula's Sweet Apothecary is what dreams are made of. Not only do they have an array of flavors in hard and soft varieties, but they have all these toppings and options, like milkshakes, sundaes and banana splits. New York City is filled with a list of restaurants, bakeries to visit, but Lula's was on the top during my visit to see the Frames. Not only was I double fisting ice cream cones, but we visited twice in one day! Yes, it's that good! My only regret is how far they are from me. Anyway, I got a tip from Brett @ Veganbrew.com to try the cake batter soft serve ice cream. Wow! Hands down the best ice cream I've ever had! My tongue still remembers it and my stomach pangs for it so I finally relented and decided to try to recreate it. I used an organic cake mix from Dr. Oetker because GMO foods freak me out, but I bet a yellow cake mix (looks like Duncan Hines Classic Yellow Cake mix is vegan) would make it even better, because color makes everything taste better, right? Without further ado, here's the recipe, but be warned of the onslaught of boys and girls into your yard. youv'e been warned!

CAKE BATTER ICE CREAM RECIPE:

***try to use organic and fair trade ingredients***

1 Cup Soy Milk (I recommend Earth Balance soymilk, it's the creamiest and made with US grown soy!)

3/4 Cup Fair Trade Sugar

2 Cups Canned Coconut Milk (about 1 and 1/2 cans) 

1 Teaspoon Fair Trade Vanilla Extract

1 Cup Cake Batter Mix

DIRECTIONS:
Mix the sugar with the soy milk to dissolve the sugar. Then, add the vanilla and coconut milk. Next shift in the cake batter into the liquid. Place the mixture in the refrigerator to chill for at least three hours. Then, process according to your Ice Cream Makers instructions. If you're looking for an ice cream maker, I recommend the Cuisenart ICE. It's served me well.

"like" The Redundant Vegan on Facebook

follow The Redundant Vegan on Twitter

I'll be on the corner eating nothing a la mode.

Homemade Pumpkin Ice Cream with Homemade Organic and Fair Trade Hot Fudge Sauce

 
     When I first went vegan, I was stoked there was vegan ice cream, even moon pies. Looking back on it, I can't believe I was ever excited for Rice Dream. It's still surprising that stores sell and and people continue to buy it. Luckily, vegan ice cream has come a long way. From cookie dough, turtle tracks and rocky road, not to mention the milk alternatives from soy, coconut and even hemp. So why did I decide to go D.I.Y. and make my own? Good question, but as Doomtree's Dessa says..."because the rest weren't D.I.ing it at all...". Okay, that didn't make any sense so on to the ice cream.

    There are just two vegan ice cream cook(recipes?) books: Lick It! Creamy Dreamy Vegan Ice Creams Your Mouth Will Love and The Vegan Scoop:  150 Recipes for Dairy-Free Ice Cream That Tastes Better Than The "Real" Thing. After much research, I decided to go with Lick It! and I haven't been disappointed. I also bought the ice cream maker that Bryanna Clark recommended, the Cuisinart ICE-30BC Pure Indulgence. Here it is in action making the vanilla ice cream for cookie dough ice cream.

    The base for most of the recipes I've made use half coconut milk and half soymilk (I use my own homemade soymilk). It takes about 20 minutes and when it comes from the machine, it has a soft serve consistency. However, once in the freezer, it gets quite hard with frozen yogurt it's rock hard (maybe that's cause I used homemade soy yogurt). I just leave it out or put in in the oven for a couple minutes.

    (Naked) Pumpkin Ice Cream

     I used my own pumpkin puree, which I'll write about soon. I would definitely make this again, but the recipe calls for maple syrup as a sweetener. Not only is this expensive, it created a more mellow flavor. I think I'll try using organic and fair trade brown sugar next time. As for the hot fudge sauce, it was yummy, and slightly grainy from the cocoa powder. The trick is not to let the sauce get too warm; otherwise, it's more like a chocolate sauce than fudge. I froze my plate for the picture and when the fudge it the plate it was excellent. Perhaps lukewarm fudge sauce is a better name.

Up Next: Cumin-Lime Tofu with Brown Basmati Rice.

"like" us on facebook

follow us on twitter

Purple Tofu Eater.

     With a soy milk, yogurt and now an ice cream maker, I run through quite a lot of soybeans. A great local source of organic U.S. grown (a Cali's worker said their source is from Nebraska) soybeans is Cali's Natural Foods, about $1.33 per pound. Right next to the bin filled with the yellow soybeans are black soybeans. I wasn't aware that black soybeans existed, but after a friend asked me why I didn't use them, I didn't have a good answer why. So I decided to experiment with black soybeans, especially after learning that black and yellow soybeans are nearly nutritionally identical. Most of the experiments were successful and nearly identical to their yellow bean counterparts.

Purple Soy Milk

     The recipe/directions comes from one of my vegan idols, Bryanna Clark Grogan. I've been making soy milk following her recipe for more than a year now and highly recommend it. There is even a recipe if you don't have a soy milk maker, though I can't vouch for it.  Depending on what recipe you use, a pound of soybeans makes between a gallon or two of soy milk. It beats the $2-$3 for a half gallon of commercial soy milk. I use the SoyQuick Premier Milk Maker 930P, recommend by Bryanna and myself.

Purple Soy Yogurt 

     I used to eat soy yogurt all the time, but I wasn't too keen on the plastic containers that piled up in my recycling. Not to mention that my favorite company, Whole Soy, didn't use organic fruit so I decided to try making my own. Plus, I can use organic/fair trade sugar. I use the Tribest Yolife Yogurt Maker YL-210, recommend by Bryanna Clark. Recipe from her as well. I'm going to try and make tempeh in the machine and I'll post if it's successful.

Purple Tofu 

     Part of the reason I justified buying a soy milk maker was to make my own tofu. It's a pretty even ratio, about a pound of soybeans for a pound of tofu. You need to make three batches of soy milk so with one machine it kinda sucks. I've refined my technique a bit but it's still time consuming and not as good as commercial tofu and not that cost effective. The black tofu came out gummy. I'm not sure if it was because of the soybeans or something I did.

     I pan fried the purple tofu and tossed in a pad thai sauce for purple tofu pad thai. Recipe from another one of my vegan heroes, Chef Chloe. It's hands down one of the best vegan pad thai recipes that I've tried.

Purple Tofu Pad Thai

 

"like" us on facebook

follow us on twitter