Sundae Sunday - We're gonna need a bigger bowl.

Today is the final Sundae Sunday of Vegan MoFo 2013, so I thought I'd make it a pretty epic sundae.  My inspiration was classic glutton Homer Simpson.  In the episode where Homer intentionally gains weight to get on disability, he and Bart are at the diner.  Homer has a banana split, and Bart tells him to eat around the banana - it's just empty vitamins.  So tonight's sundae is a banana-less banana split!

Sorry about the shadow - I had to work fast before the toppings oozed off the ice cream.

The components of this sundae are:  Swedish Glace vanilla ice cream, homemade chocolate ice cream (using my variation of the V'con chocolate), raspberry jam ice cream (using the method I mentioned in this post), fudge sauce left over from making the Dublin Mudslide, Lyle's Squeezy Syrup butterscotch syrup (which has "suitable for vegans" right on the label!), marshmallow sauce using this recipe and Sweet Vegan marshmallows, and zero bananas.

I think traditionally a banana split would have strawberry rather than raspberry ice cream, but I hate all things strawberry (with the exception of Rekorderlig Wild Berry cider because the strawberry is sufficiently masked).  And, obviously, it would have a banana.

I have to admit, my sundae was a bit sad.  The marshmallow topping was a complete failure - I spent  £3.49 on the biggest, fluffiest, most delicious marshmallows I think I've ever eaten (I took a bite of one) and wasted it all on this gross, gloopy, chewy sauce.  The flavour was alright, but the texture was awful.  I actually pulled the whole thing off of my ice cream.  Speaking of which, the chocolate ice cream was also kinda naff.  I think my chocolate kinda seized up when I put it into the mixture because it was really bitty.  So basically that third of the triumvirate was a bit crap.

The rest of it was delicious.  I still love Swedish Glace vanilla ice cream.  I even prefer it over the French vanilla I made for Mike's birthday party.  I've never eaten a better vanilla ice cream, and I anticipate I never will.  I also love that butterscotch syrup, and I love Tate & Lyle for making it vegan.  The raspberry jam ice cream was good, and the fudge sauce worked well with it.

I have loads of ice cream and sauces left, which is probably the best part!

Sundae Sunday - Vegan Dublin Mudslide

My favourite pregan ice cream was Ben & Jerry's Dublin Mudslide - Irish cream ice cream, chocolate chocolate chip cookie* pieces, and coffee fudge ripple.  I'm pretty sure it was the last non-vegan thing I ate intentionally while I lived in the US**.

One of the things I put on my 40 before 40 list was to veganise the Dublin Mudslide.  It doesn't seem like something that would be terribly difficult when you think of it as just veganising some ice cream.  But when you consider the various components, having to veganise those, and the amount of time it would take to make them regardless of their animal content, it's a goddamn project.  For the vegan version, not only do you have to figure out a way to make the ice cream, cookies, and fudge swirl vegan, you have to make your own Bailey's Irish cream!

I got a bug up my butt today and decided to just do it.

I started by making some Irish cream liqueur - I used the recipe in Quick and Easy Vegan Celebrations.  I then made the cookies - I used the soft baked chocolate chip cookie recipe in The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur but switched out 1/4 c of the flour for 1/4 c cocoa powder.  I used my modified V'con ice cream base for the ice cream, adding 1/4 c of the homemade Bailey's to a vanilla recipe.  I used this recipe for the fudge ripple with some instant espresso added for the coffee element - my original attempt ended in chocolate syrup, so it was the wrong consistency.***

The final product was good, but it wasn't Dublin Mudslide.  *sadface*  I'll probably make this again, but I'd make the following changes:

1. Use the homemade Bailey's instead of rather than in addition to the soy milk (so the full soy cream and 1/2 c Bailey's), and add a bit of coffee flavour to the ice cream itself.
2. Leave the chocolate chips out of the cookies (I honestly don't remember chocolate chips in the cookies in the original).
3. More coffee flavour and more sweetness in the fudge ripple.

I think these changes would make it much more like the original.  I made about a liter of Bailey's, and I still have some cookie dough (it would be pretty easy to pull out most of the chocolate chips), so I could probably make this again soon.  For science.

*The description I read said chocolate chocolate chip, but as I mentioned in my post, I don't remember the chocolate chips.
**I had a hard time adjusting to life in the UK as a vegan, so I went back to ovo-veg for a couple of weeks until I found my footing.
***My 2nd attempt almost failed too.  The original recipe calls for maple syrup, which I probably wouldn't have used even if I had it.  I tried to use light corn syrup, but to my great surprise, it wasn't sweet enough, so I added in some golden syrup.  Next time, I'd go with all golden syrup, or maybe agave.

Sundae Sunday - Toffee in a tin!

A few weeks ago, I wondered out loud (on Facebook) if you could do with condensed soy milk what you can do with condensed dairy milk - boil the tin to make toffee.  No one knew because it's so hard to come by condensed soy milk (and then no one buys it because they don't know what to do with it).  Well, I sacrificed myself (and my condensed soy milk) for science and did this experiment.  Turns out, it totally works and is delicious.  I left my tin boiling for an hour and 45 minutes, and it was pretty runny, so I'd do at least 2 hours next time.

On to the sundae!

I made Mocha-Maca Rocket Fuel from Vegan a la Mode via Tami's website.  This is a cooked recipe, and I usually don't have great success with cooked recipes (except the jam ice cream I made last week).  Also, maca has a really weird smell.  Frankly, it smells like burning.  So I wasn't sure about this one.

I'm really glad I tried it, because it's great.  The maca adds a sorta buttery/butterscotch flavour to the mocha.  Topped with warm toffee, it was AMAZING.  Unfortunately, it didn't get very solid in the ice cream maker, and it didn't freeze much in the quick freeze drawer of the freezer, so it was a bit melty.  Once I put the warm toffee on it, it was pretty much a soup of shades of brown - not very attractive.  But I assure you it was fantastic.

I really need to get Vegan a la Mode.  Maybe I'll ask for it for Xmas.

Cherry chocolate chip ice cream

 

Disclaimer:  The recipe below is adapted from A La Mode by Hannah Kaminsky.  I asked for permission to print my version but haven't heard back, so if she comes back saying no, this will be removed.

I bought Hannah Kaminsky's e-zine A La Mode (a precursor to her full-size book Vegan a la Mode, and which seems to no longer be available) a while ago and then never made anything from it.  I don't know why - loads of stuff looked amazing.  I had another look through it when I decided on Sundae Sunday as a theme, and I have plans to make a few things.

One of the recipes that jumped out at me was the Jam Ice Cream.  It's super versatile - you can use any kind of jam and therefore make as many flavours of ice cream as there are flavours of jam - and it only has 3 ingredients.  So I decided to make some, but because I'm me, I didn't trust the original recipe and made some changes.

Cherry chocolate chip ice cream

Ingredients:
300g smooth cherry jam (or any other flavour)
1 c soy creamer
1 c soy milk
1/4 tsp vanilla bean paste
a few tablespoons of chocolate chips

In a small saucepan, cook the jam, creamer, milk and vanilla bean paste over low heat just until the jam has dissolved.  Pour into a container and let cool to room temperature, then refrigerate for a few hours or overnight.  Pour the contents into your ice cream maker and churn until mostly frozen (mine took about 20 minutes, but ymmv).  Add in your desired amount of chocolate chips and churn for another minute or two.  Put the contents back into your container and freeze until solid (or eat it straight out of the container - I won't judge).

I bet this would be super delicious with some kind of cherry-flavoured alcohol, which would have the added benefit of keeping the ice cream from freezing solid (if, unlike me, you manage to freeze it completely before eating it all).  I have some other jams I want to try this with, which I might actually post about for the next Sundae Sunday!

This has also spurred me to make more recipes from the e-zine and buy Vegan a la Mode.  Do you have this book?  If so, what are your favourite recipes?

Sundae Sunday - Hazelnut Latte Sundae

Remember earlier in the month when I was trying to make hazelnut syrup and ended up making hazelnut sugar (and burning my finger)?  Well, lemons to lemonade and all that - I grated that sugar and used it in place of the regular sugar in my ice cream.  I used the same V'con-esque base that I posted about with the PB Speculoos ice cream (so, everything but the PB and Speculoos) and added in a bit of coffee in place of the soymilk (as suggested by Isa) and also threw in a dash of coffee extract.

The ice cream by itself was really nice.  I topped it with some chopped candied hazelnuts, "mocha" sauce (Hershey's syrup with coffee extract mixed in), and some whipped cream.  Here's a not-great phone photo:

At some point, I might try to be adventurous and make something that isn't topped with chocolate syrup.