When I got an ice cream maker, my world changed. Not just because now I could make dairy-free versions of frozen deliciousness. But because I could make any flavour of frozen deliciousness I wanted. I could also play with the sweetness and the texture and control the quality of ingredients. As much as I love the taste of cellulose gel and acesulfame potassium (grammatically, it doesn’t deserve italics because it’s not a foreign word)…
…I prefer almond milk custards made with nothing but vanilla beans, almond milk, eggs and maple syrup.
This first recipe for lavender-chai ice cream is even easier. There’s no cooking the custard down in a double boiler. It’s 15-minute ice cream made with maple syrup. All the tech you need is an ice cream maker.
The second recipe for vanilla, star anise & pear ice cream takes a little more prep to chop and freeze the fruit, but the ice cream happens in two minutes and doesn’t even require an ice cream maker.
Both are dairy-free, healthy and delicious. They also have only three or four ingredients. I came up with the recipes after being given a line of maple syrups to test from Canadian company Pure Infused. You can enhance the vanilla flavour by using vanilla-flavoured almond, rice, coconut or soy milk, freshly grated cinnamon or a few drops of lavender essential oil if you want, but I admit I really loved the aroma and taste of the infused syrups as they were.*
Lavender-Chai Ice Cream
You can use sweetened or unsweetened almond, soy, rice, coconut or regular milk, but adjust the amount of maple syrup to taste.
3 1/2 cups vanilla almond milk
1/2 cup Lavender-Chai maple syrup
pinch of salt
1. Combine chilled almond milk and maple syrup with a pinch of salt in a large bowl. Process in ice cream maker according to ice cream maker’s instructions. Done!
Vanilla, Star Anise & Pear Ice Cream
2 bosc pears, peeled, cored and cut into chunks (you can leave the skins on for little specks and added texture, if you like)
1/4 cup Cinnamon-Five Spice maple syrup
pinch salt
1 cup vanilla almond milk
1. Place pear chunks on a plate or small baking sheet and freeze at least 4 hours or overnight. Place frozen chunks in blender or food processor along with maple syrup and salt. Add just enough almond milk to blend. Done!
You can obviously eat the ice creams as they are (preferably, right away), but to make the parfaits, all you need are blueberries and a drizzle more maple syrup.
Maple Blueberry Plus-Que-Parfaits with Lavender Chai and Vanilla, Star Anise & Pear and Ice Creams
The play on words (for all the anglophones out there) comes from a French grammatical tense, but also from the fact that these stacked maple treats are even better than your average frozen desserts.
Makes 1 parfait
1 scoop lavender chai ice cream
1 scoop vanilla, star anise and pear ice cream
1/4 cup frozen or fresh blueberries
1 tbsp lavender-chai or vanilla-star anise maple syrup
Place a scoop of ice cream in a bowl, wine glass, Champagne flute or parfait glass. Top with most of the blueberries and a scoop of the second ice cream. Garnish with remaining berries and drizzle with maple syrup.
*I did not receive money for this post, but I did receive the maple syrups for free and am part of a contest for the best maple syrup recipe where I could receive money in return for a series of recipes. They are not, however, paying me to say that bit about liking the syrups as they are. If they needed more flavour, I’d be the first to admit it.
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