Vegan "Ice Cream"! (free of gluten, dairy, eggs, soy, nuts, and added oils!)

I miss ice cream. It's probably the hardest thing to give up when you give up dairy, at least for me. Especially when it's been such a LONG, HOT summer and everyone around me seems to always be finding their way to a scoop (or two) of ice cream!

So this week, someone suggested that we bring vanilla ice cream to a local get-together, as it would go well with all the apple-themed desserts that we're having there. And I did NOT want to be left out again, so I volunteered to create some vegan, nut free "ice cream" to share. And then I wondered if I was crazy to commit to this endeavor!

Yeah.
Well. What happened was this:

Non-Dairy Vanilla Bean Frozen Dessert
1 cup chick pea cooking liquid (reduced)*-see note below
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 cup sugar
2-3 vanilla beans

First, I put the chick pea liquid and cream of tartar in my mixing bowl, and set it to whip for a good 10-15 minutes.

In the meantime I put the sugar and vanilla beans into my coffee grinder and ground them up well.

Once the chick pea liquid had magically transformed, I added the sugar-vanilla bean mixture and whipped it some more. When it was all incorporated and seemed like it was as stiff as it was going to get, I scooped it out into a container, covered it, and dug out a spot for it in the freezer!


*Note: If you are using the cooking liquid from home-cooked chick peas, you will need to remove all the chick peas from the pot, bring the liquid back to a boil, and then simmer for about 1/2 an hour. You will see it "reduce" in volume by about 1/3. It should be about the right consistency at that point. Apparently, the liquid from canned chick peas is often already the right consistency. Done!

Now I just need it to freeze!

And it turns out it is not only dairy free and nut free, it's also gluten free, soy free and free of any added oils!

(I did taste it before putting it in the freezer, it was light and fluffy and very promising as a non-dairy frozen dessert!)

Have you ever tried out this new "aquafaba" technique? I'd love to hear about your creations with this amazing liquid we all just used to spill down the sink! (Making this creation "super frugal", as well!)