Chocolate Ice Cream (Vegan)
Just checking in here to share a quick recipe! It was unplanned, but last night I whipped up such a tasty chocolate ice cream (all natural, sweetened with dates, and vegan btw!) that I have to share it with you all.
When I just started this blog, everything was kind of punk and savage. I just wanted to share my recipes with you guys, even with imperfect English and all. With time, I started paying more attention to nice writing and making everything feel like a cute little cookbook. Now, with all the AI tools and everyone suddenly “writing” in the same style, I don’t see much point anymore. Let’s just bring back real blogging and sharing recipes from the heart.
So, the vegan chocolate ice cream. I’m obsessed with this thing; it’s so easy to make and contains no refined sugar. Only dates and other real ingredients. Here is what you’ll need if you want to give this easy recipe a shot.
Vegan chocolate ice cream ingredients
This is the ingredients list for my easy vegan chocolate ice cream recipe (p.s. It works great with and without an ice cream maker).
- Full-fat coconut milk – the natural one with 60% or more coconut and ideally no other ingredients but water
- Soy milk – the same; I like to either make my own, or get a natural one that is only soy and water (also, if you don’t eat soy, feel free to use any other plant milk)
- Dates – medjoul are the best, but other varieties such as bam or deglet nour will be great too
- Natural almond butter – I also like to make it in my kitchen, or buy a 100% almond butter in a local bio store
- Pure cacao powder
- Sea salt or Himalayan salt.
I’ve always preferred making everything from scratch. If you are also like this, here are some recipes you may find useful when making your chocolate ice cream:
Homemade Nut Butter – this recipe is for hazelnut butter in particular, but it works great with almonds too. Also, if you prefer your ice cream to taste more nougaty, you can switch the almond butter in this recipe with hazelnut butter!
Homemade Almond and Hemp Milk – this is how I make any plant milk from nuts and seeds. I will soon publish a detailed recipe for homemade coconut milk, but until then, this one will work (just add more coconut to make it more creamy).
I don’t have a separate recipe for soy milk, but check out this homemade tofu skins recipe – it includes making soy milk from soy beans. Raw soy milk does need to be cooked (simmered over low heat) for about 20 minutes to get its perfect taste and consistency.
Making vegan chocolate ice cream
This vegan chocolate ice cream recipe is super easy. It can be made with or without an ice cream maker.
First, blend all the ingredients until the mixture is completely smooth. If your dates are a little dry, you might want to chop them first and then let them soak in the soy milk or other plant-based milk you’re using for the recipe. Just make sure you’re using the same amount of milk you would normally add.
Freezing the ice cream
Option 1: with an ice cream maker
If you’re using an ice cream maker, pour the blended mixture into the chilled bowl and churn it until it reaches your desired consistency. If the mixture got a bit warm while blending, let it cool down completely first. This will help keep the ice cream maker bowl nice and cold.
Option 2: without an ice cream maker
No ice cream maker, no problem. This is the old-school way of making ice cream that works great (proven by me, haha, time and time again). But first, I want to explain why we do it.
If you would just put the blended mixture in the freezer, it would freeze into a solid block of ice. It wouldn’t be creamy at all. The ice cream maker has a paddle or dasher that constantly moves the mixture, making it creamy:
- It breaks up ice crystals and prevents large, icy chunks from forming. This results in a smoother texture.
- As the mixture is stirred, it incorporates air into it. This makes the ice cream lighter and fluffier.
- Constant movement distributes the cold evenly, which makes the whole mixture freeze more consistently.
These are important things to know if you want your ice cream to be smooth and creamy.
Now, before there were any ice cream maker machines available in my country, I used to achieve this creamy texture by mixing my ice cream regularly as it froze. I still like to do it this way on occasion because I know it works perfectly.
That means: I put my ice cream mixture in a large container, close it with a lid and put it in my freezer. Every hour or so (even half an hour if your freezer is at a cooler temperature), I take the ice cream out of the freezer and mix it with a hand-held mixer.
For years, I used the old-school hand-held kitchen mixer for cakes, and it worked great! I recently started using an immersion blender (another perfectly affordable little kitchen tool) because it breaks those ice crystals even better.
Whichever blender is more convenient for you, it will do the job perfectly if you remember to take that ice cream out of the freezer regularly, mix it well, and repeat this until it freezes completely and you are no longer able to mix it.
There, that’s my old homemade ice cream secret. It worked with regular ice cream, and it works with vegan ice cream just as well.
Storing homemade chocolate ice cream
Store your homemade chocolate ice cream in the freezer. It tastes and feels the best within the first couple of weeks. Over time, it might gradually lose that smooth and creamy texture and become a bit harder to scoop.
Homemade ice cream equipment
This is what I use for making ice cream at home:
- A high-speed blender to blend all the ingredients into the smoothest and creamiest possible mixture. A regular blender will work too, but you’ll have to blend a bit longer. A smoothie blender is an option, too.
- Ice cream maker (optional)
- Food container for freezing
- A hand-held mixer or an immersion blender.
- Ice cream scoop (optional).
Combine it with…
These are the recipes that I absolutely love to combine with homemade ice cream:
Vegan Chocolate Ice Cream
This vegan chocolate ice cream recipe is super easy and requires no ice cream maker! It’s smooth and creamy, made with natural ingredients and sweetened with dates.
Ingredients
Instructions
- Blend everything until smooth.
- Pour the mixture into a container, close it with a lid and put it in the freezer.
- Every forty-five minutes or so, take it out and mix it well with a hand-held mixer or an immersion blender. That way, you'll get smaller ice crystals and a smoother consistency.
- Repeat this until the ice cream freezes so much that you can’t blend it anymore. By this point, it should be smooth and creamy.
- Keep your homemade chocolate ice cream in the freezer for up to a few weeks.
Notes
If you're using dried dates, first chop them and soak them in the soy milk (use the same amount of milk that you prepared for the recipe).
For homemade plant milk recipes, check out the links in my post above.
To make your own almond butter, follow this easy nut butter recipe (just swap the hazelnuts for almonds).
The amount of time between mixing the ice cream as it hardens in the freezer depends on the temperature of your freezer and is usually between thirty minutes and an hour. You should be able to notice your ice cream getting harder each time you take it out, and also smoother each time after mixing it well.
This ice cream will still be good to eat after a few weeks in the freezer, but the longer you leave it there, the harder it might be to scoop it out. That’s because it will lose its initial smooth and creamy texture over time and harden more.
To make a nougat/gianduja flavour ice cream with this same recipe, feel free to use natural hazelnut butter instead of almond butter.
