Kicking off July with this rich vegan cherry ice cream with chocolate shards. First off, this is no low calorie ice cream if you’re looking for one, sure its plant based, dairy free and everything, but it is rich. SO with that out of the way I recommend use the whole cup of cashews, you need it to achieve the silky, velvety texture for joy of eating ice cream, the light stuff will turn out too icey.
I started off this recipe with a vision of pure white vanilla ice cream + pieces of cherries and chocolate pieces in my head. The idea was once the vanilla ice cream was 85% frozen in the machine I thought of adding fresh pitted cherries, but for no apparent reason I changed my mind the last minute and used frozen cherries, but after adding in the last few minutes of the ice cream making, I realized the cherry juice from defrosted cherries took over and stained the whole thing turned into that pink. Nothing wrong in fact its very pretty, but in my mind I wanted white ice cream with fruit pieces, shards of chocolate pieces for pure ice cream enjoyment. Further more once the ice cream was properly frozen and I got ready to take pictures so we could eat, it was so hot I just couldn’t keep it firm for more than a few seconds. anyway I got a few decent pictures but not what I had in mind. Oh well can’t complain the ice cream turned out to be pure bliss though!! Such is life.
Ingredients You’ll Need
- Cashews: Cashews are an excellent choice for plant based ice-cream as they can replace egg yolks and cream. They are rich, creamy with dairy cream like texture, have neutral flavor and color making them ideal for fruit based ice-creams. Be sure to blend the soaked cashews in a powerful high speed blender so you end up with perfectly smooth and creamy custard.
- Maple syrup and honey: Use maple syrup or honey for sweetness and caramel like flavor. White sugar if you prefer something neutral and its budget friendly. A note on sweetness: this recipe is made with fraction of the sweetness normally found in packaged ice creams. If you’re satisfied by the sweetness of the blended custard leave it at that or go ahead and add more sweetness to you’re liking, blend once more before freezing.
- Plant Milk: I go with full fat oat milk specifically Oatly for its rich thick whole milk texture and neutral flavor. Use any milk that you normally have, if you have to go out and buy I highly recommend Oatly. It’s not sponsored just love the product.
- Cherries: Cherries are rich in vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and polyphenols. Fresh summer cherries pitted or already pitted frozen cherries are perfect for this recipes. Both fresh and frozen work well, just make sure they’re pitted before adding to the ice-cream.
- Salt: salt is added to balance the flavors and also bring out the sweetness. You need just a small pinch.
- Chocolate: you’ll need a small bar of chocolate. I prefer a dark chocolate anything over 65% is perfect. Break them up roughly into shards and add it to the machine in the last 5 minutes. Once frozen they add a nice nutty bite to the ice cream. If you prefer plain leave them out.
Vanilla extract: adds a delicious flavor to enhance the fruitiness of the cherries and overall flavor of the ice cream.
Vegan Cherry Ice Cream with Chocolate shards
Equipment
- ice cream machine and covered container to freeze ice cream
Ingredients
- 1 cup raw cashews soaked for at least 4 hours
- 1¼ cup plant milk, I used oat milk full fat preferably
- 12 ounces pitted fresh cherries halved
- ½ cup dark chocolate broken into shards/pieces
- ¼ cup pure maple syrup if you prefer a sweeter use 1/3 cup
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- pinch of sea or flaky salt
Instructions
- Soak the cashews in water overnight or up to 2 hours in warm water. Pit and chop the cherries in half if you prefer smaller pieces. Both fresh and frozen cherries work in this recipe, if the color dosnt bother you.
- If you’re using an ice cream machine to make the ice cream freeze the freezing component for 24 hours or per the instruction manual.
- Place the cashews along with the plant milk, maple or honey, vanilla and salt in a high speed food processor or blender. Blend until smooth, thick and creamy.
- Assemble the ice cream machine, pour the creamy custard into the ice cream machine and turn it on. In the last 5 minutes of it freezing, add the cherries and the chocolate shards(pieces). Once frozen, transfer the ice cream to a lidded container and freeze until ready to eat.
- Remove the ice cream from freezer 10-15 minutes before eating to ensure easy scooping! Scoop and Enjoy!
Notes
NOTE: The day I photographed these images it was 101°F. The ice cream started to melt right away, under normal conditions the ice cream will stay frozen when scooped for a few minutes. It depends on the room temperature. The taste is just as good as the perfectly frozen ice cream only this turned into soft serve very quickly.
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