Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream
This super creamy and decadent chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream is made using cashews and homemade cookie dough.
Servings: 10 servings
Ingredients
Cookie Dough:
- ⅓ cup vegan butter, softened
- ⅓ cup maple syrup
- 1 banana, mashed or ½ cup silken tofu, blended
- ¾ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¾ teaspoon sea salt
- ½ cup buckwheat flour (or sub oat flour)
- 1 cup all purpose flour
Fold in:
- ¾ cup finely chopped vegan chocolate chunks
Ice Cream Base:
- 3 cups raw cashews
- 2 ½ cups non-dairy milk (I used unsweetened soy)
- ⅓ cup maple syrup (or agave)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or try the inside of one real vanilla bean)
- ⅛ teaspoon sea salt
- ¼ cup of the cookie dough
Fold into ice cream:
- 1 ½ cup of the cookie dough, rolled into small balls
- ½ cup finely chopped chocolate -- optional
Instructions
- The day before you want to serve your ice cream you need to prep by doing three things: 1) Soak the cashews in water - at least 6 hours. 2) Make and chill the cookie dough. 3) Make sure your ice cream maker bowl is in the freezer and will be fully frozen by tomorrow when you want to start.
- To make the cookie dough: Add all the vegan butter, maples syrup, banana, vanilla, salt to a large mixing bowl. Beat on low until smooth. Fold in the flour and chocolate chunks. Tip: Finely chopped chocolate tastes better in ice cream because when frozen, the chocolate gets very hard. Smaller pieces are easier to bite and also melt in your mouth faster as you eat. (Was that ice cream TMI? Not sure.) Note: Because you are not baking this dough you do not need to add any baking powder or even any serious egg replacers. However, yes you could also bake this dough!
- Place your cookie dough in a small bowl, cover and place in the freezer to chill overnight.
- The next day: Pull your cookie dough from the freezer and allow to thaw a bit. Enough so that you can scoop out pieces and start rolling into small balls. Keep rolling balls until you have about 1 ½ - 2 cups of small cookie dough balls. About the size of a large blueberry.
- Ice Cream: Drain the water from your very plumped up cashews. Then pour the soaked cashews into a blender. Add the non-dairy milk, sweetener, vanilla, salt and cookie dough. Blend until smooth and thick - like melted ice cream, basically.
- Start up your ice cream machine. Pour the ice cream base mix into the set up machine. Allow it to churn for 20 minutes - or until it starts to thicken up a bit to where you can see it swirling and firming up along the edges.
- About a minute before you stop the machine, add about half of your cookie dough balls - right into the machine so that they mix in well and infuse the vanilla base a bit.
- Turn off the machine and spoon your finished ice cream into a freezer-friendly container. I use a loaf bakeware pan. From here, swirl in the remaining cookie dough bits.
- Chill the ice cream for a few hours, until it is firm enough to scoop. Enjoy! Tip: When serving this cashew ice cream always allow at least a half hour for it to thaw to a scoopable state.
- Optional: If you want MORE chocolate chips swirled into the ice cream, you can absolutely add those over top the ice cream, or swirl them into the machine.