One benefit of working from home, is the ability to make ice cream in the middle of the day. After multiple test runs, and scoping the many different recipe variations on the internet, the following is the best combination that I came up with. The following recipe is the base that I use for all the creamy ice cream concoctions that I’ve made this summer. Now let your imaginations soar!

Ingredients
1 cup raw cashew
1 cup coconut milk
1 cup non-dairy milk
1/4 tsp xantham gum
1/2 – 3/4 cup sweetener (cane sugar, honey, maple syrup, dates, etc)
pinch of salt

Directions
Step 1: Preparing the cashews
Soak the cashew overnight.

Step 2: Mixing the base
Rinse the softened cashew.

To the blender added the rinsed cashew and 1 cup of milk and blend until smooth. This makes 2 cups of cashew cream

Note: If you decide to use dates as your sweetener, you will add the dates here and blend until smooth.

Step 3: Cooking the base
In a pot, add the 2 cups of cashew cream, coconut milk, xantham gum, salt. If you are using sugar, add the sugar now.

Cook in the pot until the the mixture boils.

Cool the mixture. If you are using honey, or maple syrup, add your sweetener once the mixture cools to slightly warmer than room temperature.

Step 3: Cool
Cool the ice cream base in the fridge overnight.

NOTE:
If you are using an ice cream maker, you are basically aiming at a max of 4 cups of ice cream mix. If you want to add some pureed fruit, etc, you will have to subtract something from the recipe. For example, if you add 1 cup of fruit, you can subtract the non-dairy milk from the base recipe above.

If you allergic to cashews, you can substitute the cashew cream with coconut cream, but the ice cream may be a little less creamy and the coconut flavour may be more prominent.