I Scream, You Scream

Posted by Matthew Liebman, ALDF Staff Attorney on April 13th, 2009

If you’re vegan, chances are you’ve heard someone say, “Oh, I respect what you’re doing, but I could never give up ice cream.” It’s an understandable reaction: ice cream is good. Really good. And many of us have a lot of positive associations with ice cream from our childhood. But when you consider how dairy cows and their calves are treated, it may make you scream against ice cream. Thankfully there are plenty of non-dairy alternatives. Here’s a very simple recipe for vegan ice cream. It requires an ice cream maker, but trust me, it’s an investment you will not regret. (I can personally vouch for this model, which you can get for just $50.)

Chick-O-Stick Ice Cream

Ingredients

2 cups Mimiccreme
½ cup peanut butter
2 large Chick-O-Sticks (2 oz size), crushed

Directions

1. Combine the Mimiccreme and peanut butter in a blender until blended.
2. Chill the mixture until cool (unnecessary if the Mimiccreme was already refrigerated before step 1).
3. Follow the instructions for your ice cream maker (for mine, you just pour the mixture into the frozen drum and turn the machine on; it mixes for about 20-30 minutes).
4. Add the crushed Chick-O-Sticks about 10 minutes before the machine is finished, just long enough to incorporate the pieces into the ice cream.
5. Serve immediately or freeze (I prefer to freeze the leftover ice cream in several small containers because it tends to freeze too hard if you use one large container).
   

What makes this recipe so easy is Mimiccreme, a non-dairy cream that comes in a shelf-stable carton, like soy milk. The sweetened variety is ready to go straight into your ice cream maker, so you don’t have to mess with boiling soy milk with sugar or blending cashews or any of the other more labor-intensive methods of making vegan ice cream. Mimiccreme is available at various stores across the country, as well as online.

And for those who are not familiar with Chick-O-Sticks, they are a crunchy, peanut-buttery, coconutty, accidentally-vegan candy from my home state of Texas. They’ve been around since the Great Depression and are a staple here at ALDF. You can find them in the candy aisle of most gas stations or you can order them online.

All in all, this ice cream takes less than ten minutes to make (excluding freezing time) and, as far as I’m concerned, it can go toe-to-toe with any dairy ice cream.