For a gluten-free, sugar-free, vegan decadent birthday celebration, we sandwiched these cookies around homemade Lavender Coconut Agave Ice Cream. Couldn’t have been better; except that I made a second batch of cookies! I whipped up some Honey Lavender Hazelnut Cookies to mix-and-match ice cream sandwich flavors with. Stay tuned for that new recipe, coming soon!

Ps. Becky, this post is for you. Thanks for being my #1 fan, and motivating me to update!

This ice cream is a perfect summer dessert; it’s creamy and rich, and the lavender offers a sweet aftertaste. Since lavender scents are often used to promote relaxation, this is a great summer treat!

Lavender Coconut Agave Ice Cream Ingredients:

5 cups full-fat coconut milk, chilled
3/4 cup agave
1/4 tsp. sea salt
4 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp. dried lavender, ground finely

Blend all ingredients in a blender, or mix vigorously by hand until combined thoroughly. Pour into the already frozen container of an ice cream maker and churn for 25 minutes. The ice cream will be soft at this point. Put ice cream in an airtight container and place in the freezer for a few hours to harden.

It’s springtime and that means it’s definitely time to bust out your ice cream maker. Or ice cream makers (plural). The electric ones, the hand-crank ones, even the ziploc bags filled with ice that you shake for a couple hours (or have a classroom filled with children shake and throw around the room to their utter delight). Whatever your preferred method of ice cream-making is, please heed this advice, and do it. I was inspired by Double Chocolate Straccieatella with a coconut milk base (you can find the incredible recipe here), and it lived up to, and perhaps even exceeded, my expectations. Rich and creamy, very chocolatey, lick your bowl till the bitter end, kind of ice cream. I’m leaving my ice cream maker’s freezer bowl where it belongs (in the freezer) permanently from now on. Ice cream all the time, I say!

It’s been a year since I made this delectable dessert; I know because last year I made it for Passover and this year I’ve done it again! This frozen treat is surprisingly sweet and you won’t feel like you need anything with processed sugar or even “real” ice cream to compete! The healthy sweetness and creamy texture of the frozen blended banana will satisfy any sweet tooth, I promise. And, if you need a chocolate fix, you can always melt down some dark or semi-sweet chocolate and drizzle it on top – I bet no one would mind.

You can find my recipe from last year here; the only changes I made this year were to add blueberries on top and leave out the lemon decoration. The strawberries and blueberries taste great with the banana, almonds, and dates, and they add a different, juicy texture to the top of the pie.

Here’s what the almond-date crust looks like before adding any filling into the pie shell. I like the uneven texture, however, you can grind your nuts into a finer and more consistent texture if you want to.

Both of these sorbets had just the right consistency; icy yet smooth, creamy, and sparklingly flavorful. They tasted just like the fruits that were in them, and I can’t think of a better summer snack – in fact, I dare say that these sorbets taste like summer!

Strawberry Lime Sorbet

Ingredients:
2 lbs. fresh strawberries, hulled
3/4 cup fresh mango, cubed
5 Tblsp. fresh lime juice
1 1/4 cups superfine sugar

Combine all ingredients in your food processor and pulse until smooth. Add more or less sugar and lime till you reach your desired taste.
Place in an ice cream maker and churn as per the directions.
Your ice cream may be very soft when done, and you can certainly eat it that way, but you could also place it in your freezer and it will firm up overnight. If you choose to do this, transfer the sorbet to a freezer-safe container and press a sheet of plastic wrap against the surface. Cover and freeze the sorbet until firm, about 3-4 hours.
*This recipe makes about 3 cups.

Interesting fact: Did you know that peaches and nectarines, along with almonds, are part of the rose family? Thanks, Wikipedia!

Ginger Peach Sorbet

Ingredients:
2 1/2 pounds ripe peaches and nectarines (I used 4 peaches and 2 nectarines)
1 cup superfine granulated sugar
pinch of salt
1/4 cup water
2 Tblsp. fresh lime juice
2 tsp. finely grated fresh ginger
1 Tblsp. Amaretto liqueur

Pit, peel, and coarsely chop the peaches and nectarines.
Place fruit, sugar, and salt in a food processor and pulse until combined.
With the machine running, pour water, lemon juice, and Amaretto through the feeding tube and process for 1 minute or until the sugar is dissolved.
Refrigerate this mixture until well chilled, about 1 hour.
Pour the chilled fruit mix into an ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer’s instructions.
Transfer the sorbet to a freezer-safe container and press a sheet of plastic wrap against the surface. Cover and freeze the sorbet until firm, about 3-4 hours.
*This recipe makes about 3 cups.

First, I created a lovely lemon ice cream. It was not too sour, and I used almond milk as it’s cream base so it had a nice creamy texture. My dad and stepmom recently went on vacation to Alaska, and they brought me back a lovely gift of Raspberry Rhubarb Syrup. The jar says it is great on pancakes but I decided that it would be even greater as an addition to this lemon ice cream. I swirled it in after I took the ice cream out of the ice cream maker, gently stirring so that it didn’t get completely combined, and you could still taste all the elements individually. Divine.

Although this ice cream certainly didn’t need to get any more complex, and was perfect on it’s own, I baked the same cookies as I had seen in Gourmet Magazine. I made a few adaptations in order to make them vegan, and was very happy with the result. They were pleasantly sweet, yet not overpoweringly so – they were a little like a butter cookie, and allowed you to taste the complex ice cream easily. I baked the cookies a bit longer than the recipe called for, so my cookies came out crispier, but it was such a nice crunchy outside to enjoy with the lemon ice cream softly sandwiched between.

Lemon Raspberry-Rhubarb Swirl Ice Cream Ingredients:
3 cups plain unsweetened almond milk, divided
2 Tblsp. arrowroot powder
1 cup sugar
1 Tblsp. vanilla extract
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 Tblsp. lemon zest
1/2 cup Raspberry-Rhubarb Syrup (or other fruity syrup – you can even thin out a fruit jam or jelly by heating it over the stove and adding small amounts of water slowly and stirring well until you get a thin sauce-like consistency)

In a small bowl, combine 1/4 cup almond milk with arrowroot powder, and set aside.
Mix the remaining 2 3/4 cups of almond milk with the sugar in a saucepan and cook over low heat. Once this mixture begins to boil, remove from burner, and then immediately add the arrowroot cream – You want to make sure that the almond milk-sugar combination is not still boiling before adding the arrowroot, or this will make the arrowroot’s properties ineffective. It should cause the liquid to thicken noticeably.
At this point, add the vanilla extract.
Refridgerate mixture until chilled, approximately 2-3 hours, and then add your lemon juice and lemon zest. Freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions. After being churned in your ice cream maker, pour the ice cream into a airtight container. At this point, place spoonfuls of the Raspberry-Rhubarb Sauce (or whatever type of fruity sauce you choose) on top of your lemon ice cream, and stir it gently in. You don’t want to fully combine it, just swirl it in. Close your container tightly, and place it in the freezer for a few hours until hardened. Eat it plain or make the Cookie Slabs (recipe below) and make into sandwiches!

Cookie Slab Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 cup Earth Balance margarine
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 Tblsp. ground flax seed, mixed well in a small bowl with 3 Tblsp. water, to form a jelly-like consistency
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line a 12×17 inch cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Whisk together flour, baking powder, and baking soda in a small bowl. In another bowl, beat together Earth Balance and brown sugar, until pale and fluffy. Beat in the flax mixture, and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients in two batches, mixing until just combined.
Spread batter on your prepared pan, and into a thin, even layer with an offset spatula.

Bake until golden brown but still tender, 10-12 minutes. Cool completely on the pan, for about 30 minutes. The cookie will continue baking on the pan while cooling, so it will get slightly harder than when you took it out of the oven.
When completely cool, transfer cookies to a cutting board, and use a sharp knife to cut your cookie into even-sized pieces. I got 16 pieces out of mine.

Place a 1/2 cup-sized scoop of ice cream onto half of your cookie pieces, and top with the remaining cookies. Squish slightly to flatten ice cream scoops, but be careful not to snap your cookies in half! Wrap individually with saran wrap, and place in freezer to harden.

Warmish temperatures is what my summer is made up of. But, we also get a few weeks of hot sun in August, and there is usually a few weeks of intense heat in September just after school starts, taunting students out of the classroom and onto the playground, or older youth to cut class and go sit in the nearby park or drive out to the beach. However, while this is what I’m used to, I’m reveling in our rare summer heat right now, and making as much ice cream as possible while the heat lasts. Because that is the most sane way to cope with it, and it’s a little painful to think about turning the oven on during the afternoon or evening.

My friend Sasha told me that one of her favorite ice cream flavors is chocolate cherry, and I was having dinner at her house, so I decided to make that for her and her housemates! I used the basic chocolate ice cream recipe from The Vegan Scoop as my base, but I added chopped fresh cherries at the end. This was the second ice cream I’ve made with a purely soymilk base, and I was disappointed with the cream’s thinness before freezing. I probably will not be making any more soy ice creams, but in the future I’ll be adapting recipes from this book to use other non-dairy alternatives. I added a few ingredients to thicken it up (extra dark chocolate melted in!) and Amaretto Liqueur and almond extract to give more body and a flavor kick. I also threw in some chocolate chips at the end with the cherries so there was a nice crunch in every bite. I forgot that adding alcohol would make the ice cream freeze a lot slower, and didn’t account for that time difference when prepping the ice cream; We ended up eating slightly melty ice cream, but it tasted delicious even if the texture wasn’t perfect. I re-froze the left overs and when I checked the next morning, the ice cream had a much harder texture…So if you choose to use this recipe, I would make sure to leave it in the freezer overnight before eating.

Ice Cream Base Ingredients:
1 cup soymilk, divided
2 Tblsp. arrowroot powder
2 cups soy creamer
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
3/4 cup semisweet dark chocolate chips
2 tsp. vanilla extract

Mix Ins:
1 1/2 cups fresh pitted and chopped cherries
1 cup vegan chocolate chips or chunks
2 Tblsp. Amaretto Liqueur
1/2 tsp. almond extract

In a small bowl, combine 1/4 cup soymilk with arrowroot powder and set aside.
Mix soy creamer, remaining 3/4 cup soymilk, sugar, cocoa powder, and chocolate chips in a saucepan. Stirring frequently over low heat, melt chocolate chips, then bring to a boil. Once mixture begins to boil, remove from heat and immediately add arrowroot cream. This will cause the liquid to thicken noticeably.
Add vanilla extract.
Refrigerate mixture until chilled, approximately 2 to 3 hours (or stick in the freezer for 30 minutes to speed up the process…You want it cold, not frozen, so make sure to monitor your mixture if you choose to do this). When thoroughly chilled, mix in your Amaretto and almond extract. Then, freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions.
In the last few minutes of churning in your ice cream maker, add your chopped cherries and remaining cup of chocolate chips. Freeze overnight, or until hardened, in an airtight container.

All of you who know me well, know that I love peanut butter. I enjoy all nut butters, but things can get quite dangerous when I’m left alone with peanut butter in particular. I have been known to eat it on/in nearly everything – making peanut sauces for vegetable stir-fries or pasta, mixing into my morning oatmeal, spreading it on rice cakes, baking it into cookies, mixing it with chocolate (or vegan nutella!) and eating it as a dessert, baking it into chocolate peanut butter cakes and cupcakes, mixing it into chocolate ganaches and even adding it to cream cheese frostings, and I’m guilty of even eating it with a spoon straight out of the jar! And of course, I do love my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I grew up eating them as a child, and when I was in college eating in the dining hall and complaining about the food, my father would tell me “If there’s nothing you like, make yourself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich”…While they may not be the healthiest option, I found myself making these a lot. And loving every bite of them. In addition to these PB&J experiences, I babysit for a fabulous family, and their kids eat a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (cut into fun shapes with cookie cutters!)…Therefore, I have definitely eaten my share of peanut butter and jelly with them. You could say PB&J is my all-time favorite fall-back food, when I have to make a quick lunch or snack, or even just satisfy a nutty craving. Mmm.

I have to give props to my friend Talia for giving me a spontaneous gift of The Vegan Scoop cookbook, and after skimming through every single delicious and creative looking recipe, the first one I had to try was their Peanut Butter and Jelly Ice Cream! Although I’m extremely excited to try most of the flavors in the book, this one was beckoning to me with full force. I made mine with strawberry preserves, which just felt perfect swirled into this childhood favorite food. It was the first soy-based ice cream I’ve tried making – previously I had only made sorbets, and ice creams that were based with coconut milk. While this soy ice cream came out divinely, I am hesitant about eating too much soy, and I’m thinking of ways to adapt the other recipes in this book so I can use almond milk and other heavier non-dairy milks in place of the soy milk and soy creamer. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I also had a silly thought while eating this ice cream; How would it taste on top of bread? My parents once had a Japanese exchange student named Koz staying with them, and he liked to eat ice cream on top of bread (any kind of ice cream, on top of any kind of toasted or untoasted sliced sandwich bread, and I have a vivid memory of him eating vanilla ice cream on top of an onion bagel). He said this was a popular treat in Japan. I always thought it was a little strange, but who am I to make judgements about other peoples’ eating preferences (let’s remember that I’m the one who likes to eat peanut butter plain…). And, since this was peanut butter and jelly ice cream, I thought it might work…So, I tried it! And it was yummy. So Koz definitely gets some major points for this idea! I understand that this is a little silly, but I thought I’d post a picture of it anyway. It is on a plate that my brother designed when he was a wee child!

Sherbet usually has a bit of dairy in it, but making a fruity and creamy coconut milk-based ice cream made a great vegan alternative sherbet. My friend Zoe brought me some lovely oranges fresh from the orange tree in her backyard, and we had a blood orange syrup stashed away in the fridge, and my new ice cream maker, so it all seemed to add up to making a blood orange sherbet. I was so excited to use my new ice cream maker, that I didn’t realize how long the bowl was supposed to be frozen in the freezer previous to adding ingredients, and so the ice cream didn’t firm up as much as it should have. But it made a darn good cold and creamy dessert anyway, perfect for a summer afternoon. Just a little meltier than I had imagined…

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups coconut cream
1 cup fresh orange juice
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup blood orange syrup (already sweetened)
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips, ground fairly finely (but not to a powder)

Blend all ingredients except the chocolate in a blender. Add to your ice cream maker and make according to it’s instructions (i.e.: Make sure you freeze yours long enough – unless you want a melty but delicious mess like I created). Just before the ice cream is done mixing in the machine, add the ground chocolate chips and make sure they get thoroughly combined. Enjoy!

Tara did it again! The powers combined of Jesse’s favorite flavors (and mine too!) plus Tara’s ice cream making genius, there was clearly no going wrong this time. The deep and dark richness of the chocolate was brought out by the coconut milk, which really just lent it’s flavor and texture to the smoothness of the ice cream – you couldn’t taste it directly. It worked very well with the peanut butter, creating a smooth cream that was undeniably out of this world. We also found some Soyatoo Whipped Rice Cream (vegan whipped cream in a can!) at the store, and made a warm caramel sauce, and busted both of those out for ultimate ice cream sundae galore!

Ingredients:
1 cup of coconut cream
1 cup non-dairy milk (we used soy, but any of the richer non-dairy milks could work too, like almond or hemp milk)
3/4 cup superfine sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4-1/2 cup smooth peanut butter, depending on your flavor preference
1/4 cup chopped dark chocolate

Blend all ingredients together. It should have the consistency of a thick smoothie. Taste and make sure you like your combination of chocolate and peanut butter, and adjust accordingly. Add the chopped dark chocolate at the last minute so it doesn’t get blended completely. Then you simply place this mixture in an ice cream maker, and follow your ice cream maker’s manufacturer’s instructions. Top liberally with vegan whipped cream and caramel sauce, and you could even throw on some rainbow sprinkles and a cherry if you’ve got them on hand! This would also be great as a milkshake, if you make the ice cream and then blend it with a bit of extra non-dairy milk.