Holy cats there are tons of raw vegan ice cream recipes in the world! The first 4 books I opened I found many many…what to do…well first quit picking up anymore books…here are a few:
Preface: Young (Thai) coconuts (you can find in Whole foods) are different from the easier to find brown coconuts we may have grown up with, inside they are gelatinous and full of fresh coconut milk. You need a butcher knife-like implement to open it (cutting a square in the top ideally with 4 whacks) and they come in an all white shell. Here is one youtube video I have seen on “opening a young coconut”
Take a look at some others, there are some pretty wild ones out there, maybe skip the guy with the hack saw or the one pounding on it with his hand or the guy pounding it on a boulder on the side of the road…yiaiy. In fact maybe I will put together a video too; maybe my method of putting it on a cement floor and using an axe (I don’t own a butcher knife) will be useful for someone who wants their fingers well away from any blades when opening a coconut and I find it very fast and simple. Here is an option I never saw before, however watch how close the hands are to the blade, it was hard to watch for fear (much more typical is hacking a square in the top with a butcher knife with four chops) I don’t recommend her method because of the proximity of the hands
Back to the ice cream.
This is from one of my favorite chefs, Renee Loux’s “The Balanced Plate”, in a high speed blender:
1 1/2 cups raw macadamia nuts, soaked 2-4 hours in filtered water and drained
3 cups fresh coconut water
1 1/2 cups young coconut meat
1/2 cup raw macadamia nuts
3 tbl coconut butter
4 tbl maple syrup
4 tbl agave nectar
2 tbl raw honey
1 vanilla bean, split and seed scraped out
1 teaspoon non alcoholic vanilla extract.
Charlie Trotter is an internationally know gourmet chef who made a raw book, “Raw” which turns out to be one of the most beautiful raw books in print today. Here is Charlie’s vanilla ice cream which he folds into a pecan praline (I will just give the ice cream)
in a high speed blender:
1 cup coconut water
1 1/2 cups Almond Milk
3/4 cup chopped young Thai coconut meat
2 tablespoons coconut oil
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup date sugar
seeds from 1/4 vanilla bean
This from “Raw the Uncook Book” (by Juliano Brotman):
in a blender:
1 cup frozen mango (dice and freeze)
2 cups fresh-squeezed orange juice
1 cup raw cashews
1 cup banana, frozen
2 cups soft or soaked dates
You can eat it right away or if you can wait, chill for 20 minutes in freezer.
Here is another one from a book I have used a lot, “Rawsome” (by Bridgette Mars):
in a blender:
1 1/4 cups coconut water
1/4 cup lime juice
1/2 cup dates, soaked for 20 minutes
1/4 cup coconut oil
1 medium avocado
1/4 teaspoon celtic salt
1/2 peel of an organic lime
“Living in the Raw” (by Rose Lee Calabro), offers a few; one is just so simple:
Blend frozen bananas
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Those recipes look fantastic! Thanks so much!
Oh Great I am so glad it has been useful!
Your comments about the video’s on opening coconuts were hilarious! I remember when I first tried to open a young coconut! Once you get the hang of it, it’s not too bad though! 🙂 Thanks for the videos!
Hi Alison,
Thanks so much for the comment, it is just absurd how disconcerting the first few tries are and to think people just eat them all the time in some parts of the world. I still need to have a certain strength in the moment I choose to toss one into my cart, then I dive right in and inhale them when I get home. Such a nice cool drink and so remarkable a chance we have to pick one up so far away for a couple bucks.
Gosh, I hate to say this, and apparently young coconuts (the shaved white ones) are dipped in fungicide for 5 minutes. And there are perhaps other things too.
We used to drink and eat so many of them. Sigh.
I think the whole green young ones should be okay. And, of course, if you live where they’re grown, then that’s great.
Here’s one of our ice cream favorites: durian, banana and mango.
Also, South Kona Macadamias are for sure raw, and they grow and sell them.
sun~rose
Hi Sun~rose,
Thanks for mentioning that, I did see some green ones on YouTube. I will look for them.
This is quite a up-to-date information. I’ll share it on Digg.
I just love recipes like these!
By the way, thanks again for the video on opening the coconut. I was going to pick one up at the store a few days ago but wasn’t sure if I’d also need a special tool to open it.
It’s true that there are plenty of raw-vegan ice creams, but they are under promoted and rarely featured. It was a month before I realized I could actually buy it at my local grocery. They didn’t have a big sign that said “raw here!!”
Goes to show…it pays to ask.
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