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Posted on Jul 1, 2012

Get a little crazy: Vegan Ice Cream Sammich

Hello (or Hey Ya’ll!) from North Carolina! Andrew and I pulled into my parents’ house late Friday night. They were kind enough to let us stay with them and watch the dogs while we attended the funeral celebration of life for Aunt Ann and visited with Andrew’s family. It was a truly beautiful service and I wanted to share some words that Aunt Ann had for everyone:

To all:

Have a Happy, Exciting, Adventurous Life with God in your Heart.

And be a little “Crazy” sometimes. It’s Fun!!!

Isn’t that just awesome advice?? Aunt Ann embodied warmth and joy and always left a place brighter than when she arrived – she will be missed greatly. I’m taking her words to heart and resolving to take more chances, be more adventurous and get even crazier (though I’m sure some folks could vouch that I’ve already got enough crazy to go around). Operation seize the day commenced with some morning kayaking on the lake behind my parents’ house – man, I always forget how much I love kayaking until I actually do it again. It’s just incredible to be out on the water, setting my own course with the stroke of my paddle and just taking in the beauty of my surroundings. Need more kayaking in my life, stat.

In the spirit of being a little crazy, I wanted to share a recipe – it’s not a mature, sophisticated recipe with fancy technique or an insane combination of flavors. It’s a recipe that brings back memories of being a kid, when summer was endless, bare feet were standard uniform and life was best when it was a little messy.

Remember when I made these cookies the other day? Well, I actually had grander plans for them, plans that involved homemade vegan ice cream, wonderful melty ice cream …

Vegan Ice Cream Sammich

Materials

Vegan Vanilla Ice Cream

makes ~3 pints  (1/2 pint = 4 ice cream sandwiches)

  • 1  can (13.5oz) full fat coconut milk*
  • 1 can (13.5 oz) lite coconut milk
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cookies: see this post for the recipe

* yes, for those of you who are wondering, there is a slight coconut flavor but it’s not overwhelming by any means

Methods

1.  Dissolve sugar in full fat coconut milk over medium/medium low heat.

2. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and lite coconut milk.

3. Cover and place mixture in refrigerator for at least 2 hours. I’ll usually make the mixture in the morning if I’m planning to make ice cream in the afternoon or evening.

4. Once the mixture is completely cooled, time to make ice cream! Pour mixture into your ice cream maker of choice (I have this one and it rocks).

Let the machine do its magic until you end up with frozen deliciousness.

5. *Disclaimer: this is by no means the most elegant way to make impossibly perfect ice cream discs for pinterest-worthy sandwiches but it worked well enough for me, so I thought I’d share. For ice cream sandwiches, scoop ice cream into a wide mouth half-pint mason jar and stick in the freezer to harden up a bit. One jar = 4 sandwiches, using  smaller/regular sized cookies. (For big honkin’ cookies, I found that my smallest pyrex bowl (ramekin-sized) worked out to be just the right size for the ice cream filling.)

Get your cookies ready and then, using a butter knife, scrape around the edges of the jar and twist the cylinder of ice cream out, slice it into four hunks and sandwich those bad boys between some homemade cookies:

Results & Conclusions

I am fresh out of elegant adjectives to describe the amazingness that is this ice cream sammich. Just trust me – it’s good. Reeeeally good.

Homemade vegan ice cream (delicious) + homemade pb chocolate chip cookies (delicious) = something you should make ASAP.

There is something so mouthwatering about seeing ice cream melting, isn’t there?

Let’s get a close-up ….

Ohhhh yes.

These will probably not last long – just giving you fair warning.

What are you waiting for? Go get a little crazy!

2 Comments

  1. I’m sorry to hear about Aunt Ann. This is the third post I’ve read today that mentioned someone’s passing. It makes you think. 🙁 But that is some awesome advice she left. I hope your Operation Seize the Day will continue for a long, long time!

    And these look amazing. And they are totally pinterest-worthy. So much so that I pinned them before I even read. They just looked so good! I’ve made coconut milk ice cream before but it was so icy. I’ll have to try again! They look absolutely delicious.

    • Thanks, Erin. I hope Operation Seize the Day continues for a long time, too! I’ve had some darn icy coconut milk ice cream before too; I think dissolving the sugar over heat combats that problem. It freezes up pretty darn hard but letting it sit out at room temp for a few minutes takes care of that. Hmm… now I want some ice cream 🙂

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