Homemade Date Sweetened Ice Cream :: Dairy Free, Egg Free, Gluten Free, Refined Sugar Free
Ingredients
- 20 Noor dates pitted (or 10 Medjool dates)
- 2 – 13 oz cans of full fat coconut milk
- 1 tbsp nut or seed butter of choice
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp almond extract
- ¼ tsp sea salt
Instructions
- Be sure that your ice cream maker’s freezer bowl has been chilling in the freezer for at least 24 hours.
- Put the dates in a medium bowl with warm tap water enough to cover the dates. Let the dates soak about 5 minutes while you get the rest of the ingredients ready.
- Put the coconut milk, nut or seed butter, vanilla extract, almond extract, and sea salt in your high-powered blender. Drain the soaking dates, and add the dates to the blender as well.
- Blend the ice cream mixture until smooth. I use the ice cream function of my high-powered blender, but you could use any setting as long as the mixture gets smooth. If you do not have a high-powered blender, a Magic Bullet style will help the dates get super smooth, or a food processor will with some extra time.
- Pour the blended ice cream mixture into your ice cream maker and process for 30- 40 minutes, or according to your ice cream manufacturer’s instructions. The ice cream mixture will be thin at first and within 20 minutes get very thick! Transfer your churned ice cream to a freezer safe container and chill.
Notes
- My ice cream maker holds 1.5 quarts. If you have a 2 quart ice cream maker, I think you could get away with doing a recipe and a half of this to get more out of it!
- I get the big bags of Noor dates at Costco - do some shopping around grocery and online to get the best price!
- I know the nut or seed butter ingredient is odd, but over the years I have found just that little scoop of nut butter really helps with homemade ice cream texture. It keeps it from getting icy and hard, and makes it super creamy. If you are nut free, use Sunbutter! If you can't have nuts or seeds, simply leave this ingredient out - you will still get a great ice cream!
- For my daughter's birthday last week, I added a bit more almond extract to make the ice cream taste more like "cake batter" and after it churned I folded some naturally dyed sprinkles into the ice cream to make "cake batter ice cream!"
- Stay tuned this summer for more ways to dress up this basic ice cream recipe! I have plans to perfect chocolate and strawberry for sure!