Roasted Peach Ice “Cream”

I don’t eat ice cream too often, but when I do I love a rich, flavourful variety.  In transitioning to veganism, I have found that soy or other non-dairy products often have an icy or synthetic feel/taste to them.  For a while I thought I’d have to give up ice cream all together.  But then my wonderful husband came to the rescue and bought me the ice cream maker attachment that goes on my Kitchen Aide mixer.  It is a wonderfully simple tool that makes small batches of yummy, flavourful and healthy vegan ice cream. 

Fast forward to this weekend.  Yesterday I was unable to walk past the crates of fresh BC peaches at the farmer’s market.  After a slow wobbly ride home – I somehow managed to load 50 lbs of peaches onto my bike and live to tell the tale – I was faced with trying to figure out what to do with them all.  Last night I was up late peeling, slicing and freezing loads of peaches.   I look forward to peach smoothies throughout the winter!  But I also I wanted to do something a bit more creative with some of them.  I have an ancient copy of Stocking Up by Carol Stoner that my mom used when I was a kid (I just checked and it’s still available on Amazon!) and thumbed through it.  I loved the idea of roasted peach butter, but didn’t really like the recipe in the book and so altered that and used the ones that were bruised from my bunch, and then I made roasted peach ice cream with some of it, using the basic pattern in most of the recipes in The Vegan Scoop by Wheeler del Torro.

I didn’t plan to post this, but it was too delicious not to, so sorry if the quantities are a bit vague – I promise to get better at keeping track of these things. 

Roasted peach butter

·         Peeled chopped peaches (I filled my 9 X 13 Pyrex about 2 inches deep – for the ice cream you’d probably be safe using about four cups).

·         1 T agave nectar

·         1 T canola oil

·         ½ t cinnamon

Stir flavourings into the peaches and roast in a 350 degree oven for about a half an hour, until the peaches are caramelized looking and the juice is a bit syrupy. 

Put entire mixture into a food processor and puree until mostly an applesauce consistency but leaving some peach chunks.  Taste mixture and correct for sweetness and cinnamony-ness. 

Return mixture to oven and bake until you reach a desired thickness stirring every 15 minutes.  This took me about an hour and then I turned off the oven and left the mixture to continue to cook as the oven cooled.

Roasted peach ice “cream”

·         ¼ cup vanilla soy milk

·         2 T arrowroot powder

·         1 container Silk soy cream (473 ml)

·         1 cup roasted peach butter

·         2 T of raw sugar, or to taste

Mix arrowroot powder with soy milk and set aside.

Bring soy creamer, peach butter and sugar to a boil and remove from heat.

Stir in the arrowroot and milk mixture – you’ll notice it thicken almost immediately.

Refrigerate mixture until cooled (2 – 3 hours, I left it overnight)

Make ice cream according to the manufacturer’s instructions on your ice cream maker, freeze for a few hours and enjoy. 

My husband has almost eaten the entire batch already!