Recently, I’ve been experimenting with different ice cream recipes. Given the heat, I’ve been more than happy to indulge! My main goals in these recipes: low sugar and high quality, healthy ingredients. And nothing too complicated.
I was initially going to do a salted caramel ice cream, but then one thing lead to another… and I ended up with a completely different, yet just as scrumptious, flavor. Seriously. Oh man. This one is goo-oood. I just had it last night, and every time I eat it, I’m surprised by just how good it is. Creamy and sweet, with just a touch of cinnamon and vanilla.
Oh, and the huge bonus: you can make it with NO SUGAR. Yeah, that’s right. I used a combination of xylitol and stevia, and ended up using only 1 ½ tablespoons xylitol in the ENTIRE recipe. Considering most ice creams have upwards of ½ cup white sugar, this is close to a miracle. Even if you use honey or maple syrup instead of xylitol, 1 ½ tablespoons is practically nothing compared to most ice creams, so no need to feel even one iota of guilt about this one.
What’s “Horchata”?
Horchata is a cold Mexican drink typically made with rice milk and cinnamon. This is a bit of a twist to traditional Horchata, since I used coconut milk and almond milk in place of rice milk (although almonds are often used in horchata recipes), but it still has the key qualities of Horchata: creamy, luscious, and sweet.
Horchata Ice Cream
½ cup coconut milk
2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk (I use Almond Breeze)
3/4 cup silken tofu (you can use lite or regular)*
1 ½ tablespoons xylitol (you can find this in most specialty food stores or whole foods. it’s sometimes in the vitamin section. use sugar, honey or maple syrup as a substitute)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
3 packets stevia
Combine all ingredients in a blender until smooth. Then put in an ice cream machine. It’ll take about 30-40 minutes for it to be done. Makes 2-4 servings, depending on how much you want!! I like to eat it in two gigantic servings by making the mixture, putting half of it in the ice cream machine and the other half in a storage container in the fridge (to later be churned in the ice cream machine next time you want it) since freezing half the batch doesn’t seem to work as well.
Highly recommend it. Yum, yum, yum.
Substitutions
– If you don’t want to use tofu, you may be able to put in 1 banana that’s cut up and frozen. It’ll add a lot of creaminess to it and my guess is that it would work just fine (I haven’t tried it though).
– If you want it to be creamier and don’t mind the extra calories, I’d up the coconut milk and lower the almond milk. The more coconut milk, the creamier.
– You can use any type of sweetener (sugar, honey, maple syrup) in place of xylitol and stevia. If replacing both, I’d put about 3 tablespoons in or so, and taste to make sure it’s to your liking.