Dairy Free Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
When it comes to ice cream, they say men prefer vanilla and women prefer chocolate. That is definitely true in our household. Hubby would always choose vanilla over chocolate and I would always pick chocolate. That’s why the first ice cream that I made with my new ice cream maker was chocolate.
But soon enough, I decided to make some vanilla ice cream. I threw in more vanilla than the recipe called for because I wanted it to be really vanilla-ey and have the signature speckles that can only come from using fresh vanilla beans.
For this ice cream, I used coconut milk again, but I used half low fat and half full fat. I knew that the low fat coconut milk might affect the texture of the ice cream. Since it has more water in it, it can produce a more icy texture since the water crystals turn to ice.
While the texture was a bit icy, the ice cream was Hubby approved as delicious dairy free vanilla bean ice cream. I enjoyed it with sprinkles on top because I love sprinkles.
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Four Years Ago: Spicey Orange Shrimp and Alton Brown’s The Puffy
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Vanilla Dairy Free Ice Cream
Ingredients:
2 cans coconut milk (I used one can of light and one can of regular)
3/4 cup sugar
2 vanilla beans
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
Directions:
In a medium saucepan, combine coconut milk and sugar.
Make a slit in the vanilla beans along the length of the bean. Scrape seeds out of pod into milk mixture. Add pods to pan.
Warm the milk mixture over medium heat until the sugar has completely melted. Do not boil milk.
Remove from heat and whisk in vanilla extract.
Pour mixture into a bowl and allow to cool in the fridge, at least 4 hours and up to overnight.
Process the ice cream in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. Place ice cream in a freezer safe continue and freeze for 4 hours before serving.
Recipe by Beantown Baker
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
I love everything about this! Thank you so much for sharing this.
i have a few questions regarding freezing smoothies. I have been told that every day you have a smoothie in the fridge, nutrients are lost. Is this true with freezing as well? Can I expect to have the same exact nutrition in a two day old smoothie as in one prepared five minutes ago? And lastly, how would thaw a smoothie that has been frozen? It seems like putting them in the fridge overnight to thaw would defeat the objective of trying to retain nutrient quality. Any thoughts?
beantownbaker — September 26th, 2013 @ 8:45 am
I’m not sure about what happens to the nutrients when you freeze a smoothie…
To thaw it out, I just put it in the fridge overnight. I freeze smoothies for convenience.
What is the calorie count per serving
Like it
Gotta try the smoothies.