Adventures in Homemade Vegan Chocolate Ice Cream

Using the recipe from Veganomicon, I’ve been trying to make some homemade vegan ice cream over the last few months.

So far, the things that one might not have on hand to try this: an ice cream maker (duh), a food processor or blender, and access to coconut milk (fortunately cans of it have always been in stock at any grocery store near me).

I’ve had a food processor for years if not decades. I didn’t use for much until I realized how easy and yummy making my own hummus would be, so that requirement was already satisfied. The Ice Cream Maker took some research. I pretty quickly decided I didn’t want to deal with rock salt, so the Cuisinart models started calling my name. Finding the Cuisinart 2 quart model at Sam’s Club for $50 clinched the deal.

What have I learned? Well, the recipe is made for a smaller size ice cream maker. Doubling the recipe overwhelmed my food processor basin, so I’ve come to a nice middle ground at 1 1/2 size measurements for the silken tofu, coconut milk cream, raw sugar, vanilla extract, melted chocolate, and soy milk.

Having made several batches of varying sizes, I can make the following recommendations. Finding the right amount of ingredients to properly fit your maker seems to affect the end result’s creaminess. Making sure to fully melt and properly blend the melted chocolate is key to nice smooth chocolate flavor. Using non-vacuum sealed silken tofu seems to make a huge difference to the texture. Also, using fresh (as opposed to frozen and then thawed) tofu seems ideal, as well.

Since Equal objects to being used in baking, I thought it might be ideal for ice cream, since only freezing is involved. The results have been less than satisfying on the first two sugar free batches I tried so some local diabetics could join in. I had not worked out some of the other issues, however, so maybe one more try is in the cards. So far, the results are very chalky and just seem to be missing the overall creamy quality the sugar filled recipe seems to create. I also tried one of the batches with baker’s unsweeted chocolate which probably also added to the problems. I’m thinking of a peanut butter version for the next try, since the added variables in the chocolate are making it hard to decide if Equal is the culprit. The peanut butter ice cream sure won’t be low in fat, but this is ice cream we’re making here, after all.

I’ll try to follow up with some pictures and results of the latest Equal challenge once I muster up the courage to give it another go.

There is this another recipe I found on Post Punk Kitchen. I haven’t tried it yet. It doesn’t use coconut milk cream at all, but rather goes with mostly tofu for the body. I’m not sure I would like it, but it might work if I’ve run out of coco milk. Another nice tip I might try from this recipe is to use maple syrup instead of turbinado sugar.

I’ve eaten, as I’m sure most vegans have, the store bought vegan ice cream, but it always seemed off somehow to me. With ice cream, the well worn motivation for homemade food certainly applies. Knowing exactly what went into the ice cream makes it taste better for some perfectly good reason.

My mouth is watering for a cone right now. See ya.

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies Revisited

Long ago I mentioned the glory that is a vegan chocolate chip cookie and detailed a very un-detailed, and mostly useless, recipe here. Nowadays, with the amazing cookbooks that are appearing for vegans, it is not hard to find a recipe to try, but this one, which has been posted to the world by the author on her blog, amazed me so much that I had to write about it.

I am here today to tell you, in greater, and hopefully more useful, detail about this recipe that so far has been impossible for me to goof up and with one minor modification makes pretty much the best cookies, eating preferences notwithstanding, I think I have ever eaten, let alone am able to make whenever I want.

Many of you probably already know about this recipe but, for those of you who don’t, the original recipe I have fallen in love with is here, from Dreena Burton’s blog thoughtfully posted from her Vive Le Vegan cookbook.

The variation I have learned to go with, which she mentions later in her post, is to use whole wheat pastry flour, instead of all-purpose, which seems to make all the difference and elevates these cookies to greatness. It gives the overall taste of the cookie that little kick that every good cookie needs to satisfy you, make you want to always come back for more, but so satisfying that eating just one can be soooo good as to keep you from wanting or needing to eat the whole batch in one sitting. Having another cookie to look forward to can become almost zen-like in its motivation with these lovelies. I made a batch with all purpose flour and they just didn’t have that same internal combustion going on.

Besides the whole wheat pastry flour, having molasses (I’ve actually been using bead molasses instead of blackstrap because that’s all I’ve managed to find so far) and pure maple syrup are the only relatively challenging ingredients to acquire.

The only other strange thing I’ve encountered is that the amount of chips in the recipe may be high, because I always have some trying to escape the batter. For a double batch (which is almost mandatory for such a good recipe) the only thing I might change is to use a heaping half cup of chips, rather than 2/3rds of a cup.

What are you waiting for? Bake some of these up now and spread the love.

Run free, little mouse, run free!

The place was infested with mice. What, oh what, to do?

There are several options out there, few of them humane, for trying to deal with little visitors.

A company called Greenfeet has come up with a nifty solution that has worked well for me, at least.

Here is what it looks like in action:

From Flora and Fauna

The little mouse can’t get to the cracker until you let him and ideally you reveal the bait outside far from your home. So far, the mice I have caught haven’t been the smartest ones ever, or were scared out of their minds as mice like to get, and I had to remove the cracker every time before they would leave the green house. They are supposed to chew their way through the cracker when you reveal the exit and run away, or as they seem to around here, hop like miniature kangaroos.  The menagerie gathered so far is up on Picasa.  I sure hope they aren’t all the same mouse!

So, if you don’t like the idea of filling up the landfills with dead mice, then you might want to give this device a try. It takes a little extra work and attention than the other options out there, but the exercise gotten when freeing the little buggers is certainly worth something.

Merry Holidays to All

Christmas 2004 has come and gone.

Happy Holidays to all and to all a good night.

Tried the Tofurky Vegetarian Feast for the first time ever. The roast filled with stuffing was excellent. Screwed up the potato dumplings, so they turned out just ok. The gravy was yummy. Next time, probably next Thanksgiving, we’ll see if we can’t make the dumplings turn out well.

We watched the first DVD of the Return of the King extended version. Boy, it sure would have been nice if they did the Kill Bill thing with all three installments and bit the bullet time wise to include all this juicy extra stuff the first time through. So good and every minute of it makes the movies better for their intended use (copious unabashed worship of the LOTR universe).

Thanksgiving 2004

O’ Universe

Thank you for wonderful seitan, a scrumptous treat any day, but particularly good today.

Thank you for great family and friends.

No thanks for a rather horrible election. Please take that back and do it over. There are many of us in the world who would greatly appreciate it.

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

Mmmmmm!

So good.

VegFest 2004

My second year at Vegfest. Much like last year. Good food tastings, most of which I would eat. Didn’t really find anything surprising that I just must add to my regular diet.

Only went to a couple of presentations/cooking demonstrations this time around. The presentation I attended had to do with general vegetarion nutrion and the audio was WAY too high. Gave me headache, which is probably why I only attended the one presentation and spent a bit more time with the cooking demonstration side of things.

I went to two cooking demos. The first one was all about tofu. Essentially a couple of recipes which substituted tofu strips and slabs for chicken in a couple of recipes. Nice thing about these demos is that they pass out samples afterward and the seasoning and sauces were tasty.

The second demo I went to was one on how to make seitan (made from the glutenous part of wheat and when cooked has a nice chewy texture). I love seitan, but never knew how easy it was to make the final product. In summary, add gluten flour to water, knead into a sticky dough like consistency, break of pieces and boil. Mmmmm, good. Especially after being grilled and mixed with nice veggies.