The Vegan Scoop

Having to hunt around for vegan ice cream seems to be a thing of the past for a lot of us which is a wonderful thing. There's soy, rice, coconut, hemp and who knows what else to make you forget what that silly dairy based ice cream even tasted like let alone why you ever ate it. And along with this vegan ice cream boom seems to have come a vegan ice cream recipe book mini boom with two books released nearly back to back for our summer ice cream eating enjoyment.

Wheelers Ice Cream contacted me a while ago asking me to try out one of their recipes and to share it with you all to promote it's book offering, The Vegan Scoop. Do I want to try out a new ice cream recipe? Are you mad? Hells yeah!

Normally (I say normally but in my experience it's 100% of the time) when you find mint ice cream in your local freezer case it's just mint flavor, not identifiably any particular mint (or at least I don't know which mint this is). Sometimes if you're lucky you might find a seasonal peppermint type thing. Wheelers have given us a new one to try out, spearmint. I must say I was pretty excited to give it a go. Spearmint has always been my favorite mint flavor. I've been known to, as a child, mow my way through an entire pack of Life Savers spearmint candies/mints in a remarkably short period of time.

My only worry was finding spearmint extract. I've never seen it before. Maybe the coop will have it . . . .nope. Health food store . . . nope. Regular old super market . . . they have an extract just labeled "mint" but after having a look at the ingredients it turns out it's spearmint with a touch of peppermint. I gave this one a try and it was spot on. I think they just added a little peppermint to give it a kick as spearmint is a bit more subtle. I don't remember the brand but it's a common one and you should find it in your regular old supermarket in the spices and/or baking areas.

The ice cream was good although the flavor was strange at first because of eating that generic mint flavor for so long. My tongue was confused. This was bright and refreshing while still being wonderful creamy ice cream.

Spearmint Ice Cream

1 cup (235 ml) soy milk, divided
2 tablespoons (16 g) arrowroot
2 cups (470 ml) soy creamer
3/4 cup (150 g) sugar
1 tablespoon (15 ml) vanilla extract
1 1/2 tablespoons (23 ml) spearmint extract

In a small bowl, combine 1/4 cup (60 ml) soymilk with arrowroot and set aside.

Mix soy creamer, remaining 3/4 cup (175 ml) soymilk, and sugar in a saucepan and cook over low heat. Once mixture begins to boil, remove from heat and immediately add arrowroot cream. This will cause the liquid to thicken noticeably.

Add vanilla extract.

Refrigerate mixture until chilled, approximately 2 to 3 hours. Freeze according to your ice cream maker's instruction.

Yield: 1 quart (approximately 600 g)