After the complexities of developing a vegan dulce de leche like ice cream, I wanted to go with something reliably great while keeping it simple. I’ve done vegan peanut butter ice-cream before – years ago in fact – but I never recorded the recipe! Thankfully, however, it’s not a difficult one to get working thanks to the composition of peanut butter, which is typically half fat and a quarter protein, plus some fibre and sugar.
This means that the peanut butter already contains most of the components needed to make a batch of ice cream! You could even get a decent custard going with just peanut butter, vegan milk and some extra sugar, but I also used some glucose, maltodextrin, and xanthan gum to help the structure along a bit. I also recommend some salt, because, well, it’s just better that way.
If you wanted to further enhance this recipe, you could take a leaf from Gelato Messina and try to recreate their peanut butter and jelly inspired ice cream, which includes a fruit coulis (banana, according to my recipe book) and fried brioche chunks. Of course, you’ll need a good vegan butter for the brioche, but I’m certainly tempted to try it out. I should definitely spend more time working on mix-ins, once I get a good set of staples up here.
Vegan Peanut Butter Ice Cream
Time: 1 hour (active), 12 hours (total)
Makes: 1 Litre
Ingredients
| 650 grams | 3% Fat oat milk |
| Powders | |
| 150 grams | Sucrose (White sugar) |
| 50 grams | Dextrose (D-glucose) |
| 15 grams | Maltodextrin |
| 5 grams | Stabiliser, such as xanthan gum |
| 5 grams | Salt |
| Fats | |
| 150 grams | Peanut butter (smooth or crunchy!) |
Directions
- Combine all the powders in a bowl and whisk together until evenly incorporated. Measure out the fats and put them in a heat-proof bowl.
- Heat the milk and peanut butter in a double boiler over medium heat. While the milk heats, slowly incorporate the powders, whisking constantly. When the mixture reaches about 80-85°C (175-185°F), remove from the heat and stick blend for about a minute to further emulsify the oil.
- Place the ice cream mixture in the fridge once cool enough and leave it there until cooled to 4°C (40°F) or overnight. Sometimes I like to move the mixture to the freezer for the last half hour to get it as cool as possible and help with the churning process, but don’t leave it long enough in the freezer that it starts to solidify.
- Pour the custard into your churner and leave it running until fully churned. Being ‘fully churned’ is hard to judge without experience, but your ice cream should have increased somewhat in volume and look a bit denser than soft serve. The time needed will vary dramatically depending on your churner.
- You can serve your ice cream as soft serve now if you like, or you can put it in the freezer to harden to your desired level. If it’s been in the freezer for more than 12 hours or so, you might need to give the ice cream a bit of time to soften at room temperature before you serve it.