Jeff Rogers - Vice Cream

Copyright 2004 by Jeff Rogers
Vice CreamTM and The Naughty Vegantm are trademarks of Jeff Rogers.

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Celestial Arts, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.tenspeed.com

Celestial Arts and the Celestial Arts colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rogers, Jeff, 1961
Vice cream : over 70 sinfully delicious dairy-free delights / Jeff Rogers.
p. cm.
1. Ice cream, ices, etc. 2. Vegan cookery. I. Title.
TX795.R585 2004
641.5636dc22
2003018614

eISBN: 978-0-307-80811-0

v3.1

Thanks to Zel and Reuben Allen for all of your help and guidance. As someone who rarely uses recipe books, I appreciate the time and effort you offered to help bring my recipe book to fruition.

Thank you to my mother, Dottie; my brothers, Paul and Sam; and all of my friends and relatives for your support on this project.

A very special thanks goes to Bill Amey, my good friend and co-founder of SoyStache.com, for your continued support, your friendship, and especially your sense of humor.

Thanks to the wonderful staff at Celestial Arts.

And thank you to all who dedicate their lives to helping others improve theirs, whether through diet or otherwise.

In my younger years, I consumed a lot of ice cream and favored the rich flavors of Ben & Jerrys, whose factory happened to be in the neighboring town. After I discovered the benefits of a vegan diet, I found that the vegan ice creams on the market were simply not satisfying; they were not rich enough, and they seemed to have an unpleasant aftertaste.

Since there are many people who cannot eat dairy and many more who choose not to for ethical, environmental, and health reasons, I wanted to create a wonderful ice cream alternative. For those who were already vegans, this would add a new dessert to their diets. For others, it would allow them to give up the dairy they had been wanting to do without.

I thought that there must be a way of making a rich, flavorful vegan ice cream that would easily satisfy the expectations I had developed when I ate dairy. Having used cashew milk to replace cows milk and cream in other recipes, I realized that was how I should make my homemade vegan ice cream. In 1999, I moved to Seattle, purchased an ice cream maker, and began experimenting with vegan ice creams. The results were as rich as I wanted them to be. Vice cream was finally born!

I began sharing my vice cream at local EarthSave potlucks and at other EarthSave chapters in cities like Vancouver, Canada; Portland, Oregon; and San Diego, California. I soon had many people asking for my recipes or for the vice cream itself. Over time, Ive traveled to many vegan, raw, and health food shows to demonstrate how delicious vice cream can be and how easy it is to make. Sharing this healthful alternative to dairy ice cream has become part of my lifes work.

I soon realized that Id rather distribute my recipes widely rather than produce vice cream commercially, since using organic cashews, the base for most of the recipes, is rather expensive, and allowing people to make vice cream themselves would make it more affordable. I believe that these recipes will make a difference in peoples lives. I certainly hope they succeed in doing so.

I created the recipes to suit my own taste in sweetness, but feel free to adjust them according to your preference. I love maple syrup and use it as the primary sweetener in my recipes. I prefer Grade A dark fancy maple syrup.

Other sweeteners can be substituted for maple syrup, though those such as Sucanat or dates will change the consistency of the mixture and may require that you thin it with additional liquid. One cup of maple syrup can be substituted with cup agave nectar, 1 cups Sucanat, or 1 cup packed organic pitted dates.

For raw vice creams, I prefer to use dates in place of maple syrup. When using dates, I usually select medjool, honey, or sometimes black dates, though other varieties can also be substituted. Ive found honey dates to be very versatile, working well in most recipes. Darker dates, like medjool and black dates, have a stronger flavor that works well in some recipes, but they tend to overwhelm vice creams that have subtler flavors. The skins of the dates may produce some speckling in your vice cream; if you wish to avoid this, just remove the skins before blending. Soft dates may be used without soaking, but they might make the vice cream mixture too thick, in which case just add some water.

Dry pitted dates do not work well on their own and generally need soaking. Measure out the dates, then loosen them and transfer them to a jar. Add enough purified water to cover them. Place the jar in the refrigerator, to prevent fermentation, for several hours to overnight. Drain, reserving the sweet soaking liquid. To add extra sweetness, you may want to use the soaking liquid in place of some of the other liquids in a recipe, or you can save it for another use.

Brown rice syrup doesnt have the same sweetening ability as these other ingredients, but it may work well when mixed with another sweetener, such as maple syrup. For those who wish to use brown rice syrup, I suggest mixing brown rice syrup and maple syrup in equal parts, then adjusting to taste.

Diabetics and those who prefer not to use sweeteners that contain sugars can try using stevia, an all-natural dried herb. Some types of stevia, however, have a licorice flavor that overwhelms some recipes. Some stevia powders are still green, and others have been refined. The green type is likely to be more natural, but it has the stronger flavor. Try using about 1 teaspoons of stevia in place of 1 cup of maple syrup (see the Carob Stevia recipe on ). Stevia alone may not be sweet enough, so if you want to try stevia and dont object to the use of other sweeteners, you can use a combination of maple syrup and stevia. This combination offers sweetness with reduced sugars.