Tag Archives: ice cream

Wild blackberry Banana N’ice cream

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That time of year has come around again – wild blackberry foraging time!  We went for a lovely walk yesterday and got a huge box full so I thought I’d better start using them.

The sun was shining earlier and that obviously put me in the mood for ice cream so I whipped up a quick batch of wild blackberry n’ice cream.

Super easy as always – you just need  3 – 4 frozen bananas (peeled and chopped before freezing) and a good handful of blackberries. Pop the bananas in the blender (a high speed one) and blitz until they start to form a creamy mixture. Throw the blackberries in and blitz again. I like to leave some of the blackberries as pieces so I don’t blitz fully but it’t up to you.

Delicious as it is, or even better sprinkled with my cinnamon spiced coconut caramelised nuts (recipe here). Enjoy!

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Almond Caramel N’ice Cream – quick, healthy and delicious

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You can never have too much n’ice cream! Dairy, gluten and added sugar free – this is guilt free loveliness. I think this may be my favourite flavour yet! This is really scrummy and tastes divine. It doesn’t need any extra sugar as the bananas and date caramel give it tonnes of rich sweetness and creaminess. It’s also pretty quick to make. I usually make up a big batch of the date caramel so I can use it for other stuff (or just eat it by the spoonful!).


You will need:

8 – 10 Medjool dates (this will create extra caramel so reduce if you don’t want any spare)

1 tbsp Almond butter

1 tbsp hot Water

4 frozen bananas

Handful almonds

Drizzle of coconut, maple or date syrup

It’s best if you peel and slice your bananas for freezing as it makes it easier for the blender to handle so make sure your bananas are well frozen first.

First caramelise the almonds. Pop the almonds into a dry frying pan, add a good drizzle of maple, coconut or date syrup and heat. You need to keep an eye on this – you want it to start to bubble and thicken but not burn. Keep stirring so they don’t catch. Once the syrup is reduced down and they’re well coated tip them out in to some baking paper and allow to cool. You can break them apart once cool.

  

Then make the caramel. Chop the dates and pop in to a high speed blender together with the almond butter. Depending on how dry your dates are you may not need all the water so start with half. Process well, adding the rest of the water if necessary, until you have a smooth caramel. Remove this from the blender (don’t worry about getting every last bit out and there’s no need to clean the blender).

Pop your frozen bananas in to the blender and pulse to blend the banana. Once it’s almost smooth add a tablespoon or so of the caramel back in to the blender with the bananas (add as much as you want – to taste). Blend well and then serve with the almonds sprinkled in top. If you want to serve it later freeze in small portions (plastic food bags or ice cube trays work best) and reblend briefly before serving to remove any large ice crystals.


Peanut butter and blueberry n’ice cream

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Nothing beats a nice cold, creamy ice cream on a warm afternoon and this combo works so well together. If you’ve got bananas already frozen this only takes a few minutes to make! 🙂

Freeze your bananas ready diced – it makes blending them easier. Freeze for a few hours, ideally overnight if you can. They will stick together so give them a bash before you blend. If your blender can’t handle them then try blitzing in short pulses or add a very small amount of non-dairy milk,  but the juice from the blueberries will help anyway 🙂

You will need:

4 or so frozen bananas

1 cup blueberries or berries of your choice

1 – 2 tbsp peanut butter

Take half the bananas and pop in to a high speed blender / vitamix with the blueberries and blitz until smooth. It will melt fast so pop in freezer once done while you make the peanut butter one.

Take the other half of the bananas and 1 tbsp peanut butter and blitz. This will be thicker so you may need a small dash of milk. Once blended have a taste and add more peanut butter if you want. Blitz.

Serve together 🙂

If you want to keep it for later pop in the freezer – ideally in ice cube trays then pop out and re-blend briefly to eat (this breaks up the ice crystals that may have formed).

Simply Dazzling! Dairy-free ice cream from Razzle Dazzle Ices

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I have had the immense pleasure of being able to review some delicious vegan ice creams from Razzle Dazzle Ices recently and I’ve been dying to tell you all about them!

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Razzle Dazzle Ices are based in the West Country so not available across the UK yet, though their stockists are increasing by the day and I hear one day they may be able to send mail-order deliveries too (oooh I can’t wait! 🙂 ). They’re a small, family-run company who have developed these ices themselves for their own son and we have the pleasure of benefitting from that. They believe in being environmentally friendly and have great business ethics so they’re pretty much good guys all round in my book!

I was lucky enough to be given 5 flavours to try, each in 100ml pots: Mango Sorbet, Coconilla, Cocodough, Hintamint and Shokalate. They are essentially sorbets but you wouldn’t know that, they give the impression and mouth-feel of a lovely, creamy dessert. I’ll give my thoughts on each on in turn.

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Coconilla

A blend of coconut and vanilla ice which is lovely and smooth and creamy. The coconut gives it a really smooth texture and removes any trace of that artificial flavour you can sometimes get with vanilla. The coconut is delicate though so doesn’t over power the vanilla at all. This is lovely on it’s own but even better alongside a vegan brownie or some fresh fruit.

Cocodough

Now I’m not a raw cookie dough fiend so I didn’t expect to fall in love with this flavour. It uses the coconilla as it’s base and has chunks of vegan cookie dough interspersed in it. My fears were wiped away with the first mouthful! The sweetness and stickiness of the cookie dough is balanced really nicely with the ice cream and you get just enough of both to feel like you’re getting something naughty but not tooooo naughty!

Mango Sorbet

Divine. That’s all I can say about this! It’s so refreshing and delicious, and not in the slightest bit grainy or full of ice crystals. It’s so smooth it’s more like ice cream than sorbet and there’s no articificial fruit flavour that you can sometimes get in sorbets – you can really taste those fresh mangoes!

Shokalate

Now I confess.. I am not a chocolate ice cream fan. I love chocolate, chocolate cake, chocolate biscuits, chocolate anything in fact, but not chocolate ice cream, I never have. I think I find it too sickly and sweet, so it was with trepidation that I opened this pot. Once again I have been floored! This is so good! It tastes like a really good dark chocolate ice cream and because it’s a sorbet (though frankly you wouldn’t notice that) you get a massive chocolate hit which isn’t diluted by all that nasty creamy milk flavour! It’s just amazing; rich, smooth and just 100% chocolatey.

Hintamint

In my humble opinion, I’ve saved the best for last. This is far and away my favourite flavour. As I’ve mentioned before my two big things are choc-orange and choc-mint flavours so I knew I’d like this but this is beyond like, I love this. I could literally bathe in this stuff! It is just so good. This is a classic combination and the intense, dark chocolate ice combined with refreshing mint oil works perfectly. This is perfect for after dinner but also makes a delicious, indulgent treat for any time!

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So “hintamint” is definitely my winner! Though it’s been a very tough call as they’re all so good! I shared my stash with my good friend Colette from Colette’s Fitness Kitchen (wishing I hadn’t now though… ;)) so I’ll be updating this with her views too. In the meantime I will continue to try to lick the remnants out of the bottom of the pots! A big thank you to Phil and Darrelle at Razzle Dazzle Ices for creating such amazing desserts (and for letting me review them!).

If you can find a way to try this ices you really must! They’re now being stocked in London (Ms Cupcake and a few other places) as well as in the West Country. Check out their website for your nearest stockist and enjoy!