This mama is loving her ice cream at 38 weeks of pregnancy! Thank goodness for tasty and wholesome dairy free alternatives. I’m even more grateful it’s been a relatively cool summer — it could be a dangerous habit eating ice cream every day.
Remember when I shared our Dairy Free Chunky Monkey ice cream recipe? We began working to find the perfect vanilla coconut milk ice cream since then and we nailed it. It even worked perfectly to create a raspberry shake just like we used to get at the Peppermint Twist back when dairy was something we were all eating. I surprised the kids last week with a complete taste-a-like fresh raspberry shake made with the below recipe and it definitely made them squeal with excitement, not to mention the mama in the front seat driving along with her own shake. What I did was surprise them on our way to the beach by pulling out the shakes poured in mason jars with these lids, it was sooo fun watching them drink ’em up!
What I will tell you, though, is that we haven’t yet mastered how to keep the ice cream from freezing so hard. Arrowroot starch is supposed to make a difference, and it is, just not much yet, so I am still experimenting with that. What this recipe does make is a fan-freaking-tastic soft serve vanilla ice cream, perfect for any topping. Some of the toppings we use:
- dark chocolate covered almonds or cashews
- fresh berries
- fresh berries pulverized into a sauce
- dark chocolate shavings
- coconut whipped cream
- crushed peanuts
- chopped roasted almonds
- bananas
This is the ice cream maker I bought a few months ago that has revolutionized our ice cream making experience. Our old one was huge and loud and took forever to make a batch. Now, our ice cream is done within a half hour of the ingredients being thrown together. It’s a beautiful thing, not much time between my ice cream and I.
What I love about the ease of this ice cream maker is that you remove the inside container and keep it in the freezer so it’s always ready to go. I keep two cans of coconut milk in the fridge at all times so we can put together a batch whenever the time feels right.
One day I had small paper cups on hand from sampling a greens drink at the office, and had made a raw “snickers” bar recipe for the girls. They were playing outside on a warm afternoon and I thought I’d surprise them with a homemade Blizzard. I chopped up the raw “snickers” bars, hand stirred them into a batch of our dairy free vanilla ice cream, added a wide straw and delivered them to the swing set where we have a make shift “drive-in” for serving each other berries and fresh veggies from the garden when we are playing around. The look on their faces at this fun surprise was so worth it!
Dairy Free Vanilla Ice Cream
Ingredients
- 2 cans full fat coconut milk
- 1/3-1/2 cup honey
- 3 T. vanilla
- 4 1/2 tsp. arrowroot starch
Instructions
- Blend together the above ingredients and pour into your ice cream maker.
- Let it churn until desired thickness. Ours makes a perfect soft serve ice cream.
- If we want to save some for later, we store it in a container and take it out to sit on the counter for about a half hour before scooping it up.
- Add desired toppings and serve.
- Serves 4.
