Ice-Cream and Giggles

After finishing high-school, I spent most of my summer at the beach, and afterwards I would go to Cold Rock and get the most stupendous flavour ever: bubblegum ice-cream with Wonka Nerds mixed in. Now, I would never eat Nerds again (considering they are made with carmine: a red pigment made from the shells of crushed insects!) but I did manage to make a delicious vegan version of bubblegum ice-cream, and I made it blue in honor of my old favourite flavour! This time I decided to make a new base, as I was worried a banana or coconut cream base would take away or overpower the bubblegum flavour. The base is a mix of almond milk and soaked cashews: it worked perfectly, though it does result in a little bit of a grainy mix due to the cashews: it really depends on the quality of your food processor in regards to how smooth the final product will be. I can't wait to try this base with other flavours: I think my next ice-cream will be cotton candy flavoured! In regards to the bubblegum flavour, you do need bubblegum essence, and there are vegan options out there such as this.

You will need:

Serves approx 2. Preparation time: 15-20 minutes, then 2-4 hours to freeze.

1 cup of soaked cashews (preferably overnight)
1 cup of almond milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
3-4 tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp (or more) of vegan bubblegum essence
2 tbsp arrowroot
Optional: blue food colouring

1. Mix the cashews and almond milk in a food processor until smooth.
2. Add the vanilla, maple syrup and arrowroot powder. Mix.
3. In regards to the bubblegum essence, it really depends how strong the brand you buy is. Start with a few drops, and add more until your desired taste is achieved. It is good to be patient in how much you add, as it doesn't taste very nice when the flavour is too strong. When you are happy with the taste, add the blue food colouring.
4. Pour into a metal tray, cover in glad wrap and place in the freezer. Whisk every 30 minutes until ready to serve.

You will need:

1 cup almond milk
1/4 cup chia seeds
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla essence
handful of blueberries

1. Combine the milk, chia seeds, maple syrup and vanilla in a bowl. Hand whisk until combined. Cover with glad wrap and place in fridge for an hour so that the chia seeds expand.
2. When your mixture is pudding like, pour into popsicle moulds and mix in your blueberries. Place your sticks in the moulds and put in freezer for at least 4 hours.

You will need:

2 frozen bananas
2 -  4 tbsp of almond spread made from 100% almonds. You will need to add enough almond spread as according to your preferred taste.
1 - 2 tbsp almond milk
1/4 cup of roughly cut vegan chocolate


1. Combine the banana, almond spread and milk in a food processor. Add more milk if it won't mix. I decided to only half mix mine so that there would be banana chunks in the ice-cream.
2. Pour into a metal tray, and mix in the chocolate. Cover with glad wrap and place in a freezer for 30 minutes before ready to serve.

This is something I have been wanting to do for ages. The ice-cream sandwich, but vegan. But what cookie do you use? And what ice-cream? After much deliberation, I decided on peanut butter ice-cream and choc-chip cookies. Oh, what a combination! It was extremely delicious. As for the choc-chip cookie recipe, I searched high and low for a healthy vegan recipe, but to no avail. Eventually I found one that used coconut oil instead of butter, but unfortunately brown sugar was also a large part of the recipe. I still made it though (which is what I used in this post), though in the future I think I will experiment with making a refined sugar free and gluten free choc-chip cookie, but bear with me here! The cookies used in this post are by far one of the best choc-chip cookies I have ever had (vegan and non-vegan!), so I suggest you try making it.

For the cookies. I got the recipe from here, but I halved it. It should make 6 cookies, enough for three ice-cream sandwiches.

You will need:
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp almond milk
1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
dash of salt
1/2 cup vegan choc chips (I used a block of vegan chocolate which I cut up into chunks).

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Cream the coconut oil with brown sugar, add almond milk and vanilla.
3. Sift flour, baking soda and baking powder over mixture, mix in. Add salt, and mix in the chocolate.
4. Divide mixture into 6 cookies, place on a tray with greased baking paper, press down slightly.
5. Bake for 10 minutes or until brown.

For the ice-cream:
2 frozen bananas
5-6 tbsp of vegan peanut butter (try and get one that is 100% peanuts)
1/4 cup almond milk


1. Combine all ingredients in a food processor.
2. Pour into a metal tray and cover with glad wrap.
3. If you used frozen bananas, the ice-cream should be hard enough to use a with an ice-cream scoop after around 30-45 minutes in freezer. Don't forget to whisk every 30 minutes until ready.

Making the sandwiches:

You will need 2 cookies and one scoop of ice-cream per sandwich. Simply place a cookie upside down on a place, put a scoop of ice-cream on the cookie, and put another cookie on top. Voila! I hope you like it!

You will need:

2 frozen bananas
1/4 cup of almond milk
2 tbsp cacao powder
2 broken open teabags of chai tea

optional: 1-2tbsp maple syrup


1. Combine all the ingredients in a food processor. When combined, taste to see if you think it needs sweetener (the chai makes it a little bitter so you might need some.)
2. Pour into a metal tray, cover whith glad wrap and place in a freezer.
3. Whisk every 30 minutes until ready to serve.
4. When serving, top with some cacao nibs!

After my sister made some homemade almond milk which was crazy delicious, I thought I would have a go at making some ice-cream with almond milk as the base (no bananas or coconut milk in sight!). To make your own almond milk: soak 1 cup of raw almonds in 3 cups of water for at least 10-12 hours. Then in a cold press juicer, put in the almonds and "almond milk" will come out. So yummy!

You will need:

1 full cup of strawberries
1/2 cup of homemade almond milk or another plant-based milk.
2 pitted and soaked dates
1/2 a tbsp to 1 tbsp of gluten-free corn flour (this helps to thicken the mixture).


1. In a food processor combine all of the ingredients.
2. Pour into a metal tray, cover in glad wrap and place in the freezer, whisking every 30 minutes until ready to serve, or alternatively place in an ice-cream maker and follow manufacturers instructions.