Learning Out Loud: Homemade Ice Cream (without a machine)

A few lessons in making vegan protein ice cream for the first time

There’s nothing like a delicious scoop of ice cream. Many of us have childhood memories of it and having a spoonful of it as an adult definitely brings you back to simpler times.

But alas, I’ve come to learn that my body no longer can consume dairy and my biggest disappointment was having to give up ice cream. Heart. Broken.

And yes there are dairy substitutes but they usually land in one of these buckets:

• Uses cashew milk, which I’m allergic to

• Uses coconut milk, which I just can’t get past the coconut taste - it always overpowers the ice cream flavor

• Uses almond milk, which tastes too watered down to me as it just didn’t taste creamy enough to me

• Uses oat milk, which is DELICIOUS, but tends to be expensive and overloaded with sugary ingredients

Out of frustration, I cut out most of my ice cream consumption. Then I noticed a BOOM in homemade ice cream machines and this excited me! My hope to indulge in ice cream may come true again.

Until I saw the price.

$200 here. $399 there. $699?!? Are you serious?

Just as I was about to pop my bubble again, I noticed a review about a manual ice cream maker.

Manual? Like with ice and salt?

Nope, manual as in a circular freezing pan.

So it’s easy to clean? Doesn’t require an outlet? I purchased it!

The company’s name is Chef’n and they sell the Sweet Spot ice cream maker.

I ordered it hoping that I didn’t try it only to be further disappointed. But it finally came in and I mentally prepared for whatever this experience takes me.

First, the instructions said for me to wash it and then place it in the freezer for 24 hours. Easy enough. Washed and laid it flat in my deep freezer. Done.

The next day, I geared up ready to create my first ice cream dish. I decided on vegan strawberry ice cream. But then I thought, why stop there? Maybe I can use some of my supplements that I’ve been trying to consume as well. I’ve been trying to be more consistent working out so I was really curious of if I can turn my sweet treat into healthy option into my fitness journey. That led me to try it with adding in protein powder and collagen powder.

I grabbed my vitamix blender and placed in the following:

• 10 oz oat milk (just the Kirkland brand from Costco)

• a handful of frozen strawberries (again Kirkland brand)

• a serving size of my vanilla protein powder (I prefer this one from Naked Nutrition)

• a serving size of collagen (I prefer this one from Naked Nutrition)

That’s it! I blended it to be as smooth as possible. The instructions say that for best results to make sure the liquid you’re using is cold. Thanks to the frozen strawberries, I had already met that requirement.

I poured the mixture in the dish and let it sit for about 15 seconds. Then I got to scraping. I use the spatulas that they provided to scrap the ice cream mixture off the iced surface. You’re suppose to keep scraping and spreading it across the surface until it thickens to the consistency that you want for your ice cream.

Now this is where you’re going to have to put some elbow grease into it. This can give you a good arm workout of scraping the ice cream up and turning it over and flattening it on the surface so that it can freeze some more. In the beginning, it kind of reminded me of making scrambled eggs, only there’s no risk of “burning” anything.

After about 4 minutes, my ice cream had the perfect consistency. It wasn’t…pretty necessarily. Like that smooth scoop look when you dig out a fresh scoopful of ice cream out. But oh when I tasted it.

YALL.

Before I knew it, my head leaned back and my eyes had closed to appreciate what I just created. It was so good, I made a second batch to eat. With the amount of mix that I made, I still had plenty left over so you really don’t need to do 10oz, I suppose. I was going to keep making it until I ran out and store it in my freezer, but I did read reviews that warned that it won’t taste the same as it’s best to make it fresh when you want it.

But at the end of the day, I just am so shocked that I actually made ice cream that I can eat with ingredients that I already have for my protein shakes! So here’s my takeaways:

• I should experiment to see how I can make single servings of ice cream. As I mentioned 10oz was more than I needed for the amount of ice cream that I eat at time.

• Maybe try strawberry ice cream with chunks of the frozen strawberries!

• Maybe add a tad bit of honey to the mixture. My ice cream had a light sweetness that I did enjoy, but I’m curious of if I can make it just a tiny bit sweeter. I’d rather use honey than to use sugar if I can.

• Try a variety of flavors like frozen cherries, vanilla using vanilla extract, or chocolate ice cream using cocoa powder.

• Is there a way that I can make this prettier when done? I’m not sure but I’ll give it a shot with my next batch to see if I can make the presentation a bit better.

There’s so many recipes online so it’s really just about trying it out and adjusting it as I go. But I’m grateful that I at least found one with strawberry ice cream that I can start out with.

That’s it for today’s Learning Out Loud experience. If you decide to try making homemade ice cream, please let me know how that went! I hope you have a good experience, but remember that even if it doesn’t, keep trying until you get the results that you want!

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