V for Life Roving Chef Justina shows us some easy, no-machine vegan ice cream and sorbet recipes, with some great ideas for different ingredients, flavours and colours to make the most of those summer days. See what cool combinations you can come up with!
Ice cream is one of the best foods on earth, don’t you think? Sometimes we need some inspiration to make our own on those hot days, especially when shop shelves look a little empty of vegan ices, or you're stuck for something to serve with ice cream.
Remember: You can enjoy your ice cream however you like; you may want to try it with a brownie, pie, banana split, soda float, affogato, ice cream milkshake, peach melba or baked Alaska – the possibilities are endless.
To get you started, here is an easy ice cream recipe and some ideas for new and exciting flavours. And read on for some super sorbets.
No machine banana ice cream
Serves 2
Preparation time: 40 minutes
- 1 ripe banana (peeled and frozen)
- 1 tsp golden syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- 1 tbsp plant milk or cream (add extra if softer texture desired)
- Place the frozen banana in a high-speed food processor and add the golden syrup and vanilla essence.
- If your food processor struggles to blend the ingredients, add some of the plant milk or cream until you achieve a smooth consistency.
- If you prefer soft-scoop ice cream, serve straight away. Otherwise, place it in the freezer in a lidded container for at least 30 minutes. It is likely to go slightly grey in that time, but don't worry – flavour it with chocolate or peanut butter to add some colour.
Not a fan of bananas? Use strawberries instead for a summer-flavoured sorbet. Try buying fresh strawberries in season and freezing them, instead of using packs of ready-frozen fruit.
Experiment with different flavours
The freezer section of your local shop or supermarket already contains all the flavours to keep you going on a hot summer's day. However, that shouldn't stop you from using your imagination to create some new ones – let's think outside the box. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Coffee and chocolate
- Matcha and raspberry
- Horlicks chocolate chip
- Vegan miso caramel
- Tahini and peanut butter
- Olive oil and orange
How about savoury ice cream? The more adventurous among you might like to try some of these:
- Plum and balsamic
- Gherkin
- Cheese
- Ranch sauce
- Curry-spiced
Can you think of more interesting flavours you can’t buy in the shops? Do please mention these in the comments below.
Sorbets and ice lollies
These are a refreshing and often guilt-free way of keeping cool. They're easy to make at home in summer flavours. Ice lollies add attractive colours and you can even add whole berries to contribute to your five-a-day. Or you could infuse the mixture with herbs, such as basil, sage or rosemary.
Firstly, here's a recipe for sorbet, and we then give you some ideas for great variations on lollies and sorbets!
No machine apple sorbet
Serves 5
Preparation time: 4 hours
- 2 Granny Smith apples
- Juice of half a lemon
- 200ml water
- 100g sugar
- 25g glucose
- Wash, peel and core the apples.
- Cut the apples into small cubes and place in the lemon juice.
- Bring the sugar, water and glucose to boil, simmer for 5 mins. Leave to cool.
- Pour the syrup over the apples and blitz in a food processor until smooth.
- Strain through a fine sieve into a freezer-proof container, which won’t scratch or puncture with a fork.
- Freeze for 1 hour, then whisk or use a fork to break up any ice crystals. Return to the freezer.
- Set the timer and mix the sorbet once every hour and repeat four times.
Other fruit can be used for different flavours. If you have an ice cream machine then at step 6, place in the machine and leave it until it is done.
Some other flavour ideas for ice lollies and sorbets:
- Rhubarb and orange
- Watermelon and lime
- Pink grapefruit
- Pineapple and ginger
- Peach and cherry
- Elderflower and gooseberry
- Melon and cucumber
- Pear and apple
- Kiwi and banana
- Blueberry and lemon
If you like your cold desserts boozy (or mocktail style), you could try some of these:
- Gin and tonic
- Pimms and lemonade
- Piña colada
- Mojito
- Long Island
Or why not re-invent your favourite desserts in these fantastic frozen flavours?
- Apple with cinnamon, for apple pie
- Cherry Bakewell, by adding almond essence to cherry
- Plum crumble, by adding vanilla
Ice cream from around the world
It seems every country and culture has their own way of making ice cream. Here are some flavours from our colourful culinary map (don't forget, you can veganise many of these with dairy or egg substitutes):
- Froco, otherwise known as ‘French ice cream’ – frozen custard ice cream. For extra richness, make your custard with cream.
- FroYo – frozen yogurt ice cream.
- Sherbet – this is like sorbet, but often contains around 1–3% dairy, commonly in fruity flavours.
- Gelato – often confused with ice cream, but it contains less fat because it uses more milk than cream in its making. It's often considered a healthier alternative to ice cream.
- Semifreddo – made in a similar way to gelato, rapidly whipping the ingredients, for a lighter final product. Made with egg whites.
- Parfait – similar to semifreddo but instead made with egg yolks.
- I-Tim-Pad – a popular ice cream in Thailand. Made by spreading the ice cream mixture on an iced surface and scraping it to form a roll.
- Kulfi – a dense Indian ice cream made with condensed milk. Common flavours include pistachio, cardamom, mango, saffron or rose.
- Mochi ice cream – Japanese dessert made from chewy rice containing a flavourful filling. Although this dessert wasn’t originally an ice cream, it has since been branded as a popular choice in UK shops.
- Faloodeh or paloodeh – Iranian frozen dessert; similar to a sorbet, made into vermicelli shapes, often from rose water.
- Snow cream – Taiwanese ice cream, made by adding flavours to whipped cream and freezing.
- Dondurma – Turkish ice cream contains salep flour and mastic, which gives it a chewy, toffee-like consistency.
- Granita – frozen crystallised dessert made from sugar and fruit juice.
- Spaghettieis – ice cream made look like spaghetti Bolognese. Made using potato ricer.
Other ways of serving ice cream include soft-serve, liquid nitrogen-frozen, deep fried, ice cream sandwiches and cakes, spaghetti and in a wafer cup.
Enjoy and stay cool!
