Saturday, October 4, 2008

VeganMoFo: Ice Cream Rules

Alternate title: when bad things happen to good people. Unfortunately, my ice cream maker didn't freeze properly so I am not able to produce ice cream photos today. Boo. Instead I would like to talk a little bit about my favorite ice cream flavors and some basic rules to follow.

First and foremost, you have to have quality ingredients. When I indulge I like to do it right. So no artificial vanilla or expired soy milk. Chances are that good ingredients will make a great ice cream.

soy nog ice cream

Numero dos: Always start with cold ingredients. It makes for a faster freeze and a smoother ice cream. I learned my lesson on this one. I like to mix everything together the night or morning before and keep in the fridge for several hours. It is so much better this way.

Letter C...For the love of good food, use a thickener! Whether it be an arrow root slurry in the heated up mixture or a block of silken 'fu, you want ice cream to be thick and delicious. If you are making sorbet, that's another story entirely.

banana ice cream (Vcon)

Finally. Don't overcrowd with mix ins. My general rule is about 1 cup to 1 1/2 quarts ice cream. But that may just be me.

When it comes to homemade ice cream I am a fan of the versatility and kickass flavor of the Veganomicon recipe. I've made vanilla, strawberry, banana and my personal favorite (and a mish mash of recipes):

fudgy wudgy blueberry brownie ice cream

I also think there are some very inspired ideas at Vegan Ice Cream Paradise. I have been dying to try that Chick-O-Stick one for a long, long while.

As for commercial stuff my favorite is the Purely Decadent line from Turtle Mountain. Flavors I've tried and loved: blueberry cheesecake, cherry nirvana, coconut craze, cookie avalanche, dulce de leche, pralin pecan, rocky road, turtle trails, and my favorite...pomegranate chip!


Hey, what can I say? I've eaten a lot of ice cream in the past seven years. I promise you pictures of that pumpkin gingersnap ice cream as soon as I get the bowl to freeze.

7 comments:

Embee Breedlove said...

The tub for my ice cream maker is frozen into my dinky little part-of-the-refrigerator freezer by about two inches of frost. I'm going to chizzel it out with a butterknife. Again.

And by the way, nuh uh, it is NOT because I live in Queens. So there.

A.M. said...

I wish there was a good-not-environmentally really-bad-way to ship ice cream and you would ship me some... ;-)

aTxVegn said...

I learned all those things the hard way too! I can't wait to see the pumpkin ginger ice cream.

Anonymous said...

Yummy!!!

Bex said...

Pomegranate Chip?!?! we never get cool flavors like that around here.

bjorkedoff said...

oh my god!those look wonderful.
isa has an ice cream maker and i was just talking earlier today about how i wanna make peanut butter ice cream!mmmmm.

Sarah said...

pom chip is awesome! the cookie dough is so deliciously evil.