Vegan Blackcurrant Ripple Ice Cream

Name: Vegan Blackcurrant Ripple Ice Cream
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 765 min
Ingredients: 200 grams blackcurrants; 60 grams granulated sugar; 1 tbsp creme de cassis; 400 ml coconut milk; 1 tbsp arrowroot powder; 300 grams frozen bananas ((about 3 bananas)); 75 grams caster sugar; 1 tsp vanilla extract (I use Neilson Massey); icing sugar (to serve, optional)

Published on August 5, 2014 by Elizabeth Atia 49 Comments
Last Updated on January 28, 2019

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My electric ice cream machine died last year. It was a gruesome death, with it’s bright blue coolant slowly leaking out all over the contents of my deep freeze. This was the second time this ice cream maker death occurred in my freezer. The first time it happened the company replaced the bowl free of charge, but the same thing happened again. I’ve lost faith in electric ice cream makers and haven’t yet replaced it with another brand.

My experience so far with no churn ice creams has been fairly limited. Whipping cream/condensed milk ice cream is very delicious and easy to make (like my mint chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream), but it’s heavy on the calories which, for some reason, have a great fondness for sticking to my bottom and refusing to move. So I’ve been avoiding that method.

Then there’s the quick banana ice cream: blitz frozen banana chunks up in the food processor until thick and creamy for a quick, no junk treat. It’s very banana-y which is fine if you love bananas (like me) but not if you don’t (the husband). I sometimes drizzle some double cream into the food processor while the bananas are pulsing and then stir in chunks of dark chocolate and walnuts; a sort of healthy chunky monkey (I really ought to blog that recipe!)

Then, the lovely Aimee over at Wallflowergirl introduced me to the fantastic world of coconut milk ice creams. After my first taste of her Mayan Chocolate recipe, I was hooked, and I throw several tins of coconut milk into my shopping trolley now when I do a supermarket shop. Coconut milk imparts a lovely creamy texture to the vegan ice creams, and it’s a fairly neutral flavour so it can be easily tailored to your liking.

Shetland was recently hit by a hit wave. For a whole week, we had glorious sunshine and temperatures exceeding 20 degrees Celsius (that’s a heatwave by Shetland standards!). Ice cream was required.

A quick look in the fridge revealed two punnets of gorgeous Shetland blackcurrants grown by my veg box supplier on the west side of Shetland. I knew there were three bananas broken into one-inch segments in the deep freeze and a cupboard containing several tins of coconut milk.

An idea was born!

I’m rather pleased how well this ice cream turned out. I deliberately kept the sugar quantity low as I didn’t want to mask the tartness of the fresh berries. Crème de cassis was added to stop the blackcurrant ripples from freezing into ice crystals, as often happens when fruit purées are stirred into an ice cream base. You can taste the banana, slightly, but the predominant flavour is blackcurrant. The children kept coming back asking for their bowls to be refilled and as children are honest critics I knew I was on to a winner.

You might also be interested in my other ice cream recipes. You might also like, if you have a glut of blackcurrants, my friend Jane’s blackcurrant cordial recipe. Homemade Ribena, yes please!