Category: ice cream

birthday cake

Posted by miss alix – 22 Nov ’10

Guess what. It’s my birthday.

This weekend I got to be a part of a cake and ice cream birthday party with two lovely ladies, Tara and Gen. I would say that we outdid any other party I’ve been a part of with mere quantity of delicious cake and ice cream.

We had 3 cakes, more than a dozen cupcakes and two ice cream cakes from Scoops.

cakes and cupcakes

I made a chocolate covered vanilla cake and a red velvet cake. There were chocolate cupcakes too.

But my absolute favorite part…

brown bread ice cream cake

…was the brown bread ice cream cake. Heaven on a plate. I’ve always wanted to have vegan brown bread ice cream. It was exactly as I imagined it would be. Amazing!

happy birthday

We all wore fluffy tiaras and sang happy birthday and ate loads of cake and ice cream. I had a major sugar overload but it was well worth it.

Oh, and I kind of fell in love with Tara’s cat Lucky.

lucky cat

How cute is she?

Vegan Road Trip: Part 2

Posted by miss alix – 18 Jan ’10

Vegan sweets and treats

Though Los Angeles is extremely fortunate to have a number of great vegan restaurants, we are severely lacking in the area of vegan desserts. Though a few places have a few items available, and yeah I know Babycakes is open (but yes I like my gluten and sugar thank you very much), it’s just not the same as what you might find elsewhere. Luckily on our trip we were able to visit two completely vegan bakeries and sample some delicious treats.

Our first stop was Pattycake Bakery in Columbus, Ohio. This adorable storefront was filled with a plethora of home style desserts including cookies, whoopie pies, muffins, cupcakes and more. They have all the stuff you’re always craving. While Shawn and I oogled over the huge selection and tried to decide what to get, the place hustled and bustled with people buying tons of stuff. We ended up getting a whole box ourselves, trying to sample as much as possible, filling it with three different types of cookies, a whoopie pie, and a cupcake. Now I’m a cookie girl and these were some damn good cookies. The whoopie pie was also moist and delicious, wonderfully sweet with just the right amount of creme filling. I wish I had tried one in the other flavors they had to offer. I think if I lived within driving distance of this place I would be there everyday getting cookies. No joke. Everything was high quality without being over the top. Pattycake Bakery was completely delightful.

Also in Columbus, On the Fly, where we got the awesome vegan empanada and chili, had some desserts on display to choose from. Since we knew we were on our way to Pattycake, we didn’t have a chance to try anything, but I have to mention them anyway, because they were so gorgeous. The cupcakes were topped in chocolate ganache as well as vegan buttercream and just looked delightful. They also had jars full of cookies. Did I mention I love cookies? I do.

No trip East would be complete without a stop at the infamous Vegan Treats. While you can get their delicious desserts at almost every vegan and vegetarian restaurant from New York to Pennsylvania, it’s well worth it to make the trip to their storefront in Bethlehem, PA. Here you can get their personal sized french pastries, along with donuts and other specialties. I’m just going to come out and say, if you haven’t had Vegan Treats, you haven’t what is arguably  the best of the best when it comes to vegan bakeries. Having been in business for over ten years and catering to so many places on the east, they really know their stuff. Vegan Treats is so delicious and decadent and amazing I just can’t say enough good stuff about it.

While there, we loaded up on desserts, going for anything with a holiday theme, and some donuts. Are they not the cutest desserts ever? We also had to show our love and get some hoodies to take home once the desserts were gobbled up. The new designs they have are possibly as cute as all the desserts. Luckily, now you can get some of their tee-shirts online (go support vegan businesses!).

Unfortunately, since we traveled over the holidays, we were unable to go to a few sweet stops on the way, including Sticky Fingers Bakery in DC or Lula’s Sweet Apothecary in NY. We did get to make up somewhat for the lack of ice cream at Spiral Diner in Dallas, Texas. They had a small case filled with baked goods, including monster vegan peanut butter cups, but we were ultimately lured in to the sweet call of an ice cream sundae. Shawn picked out the Chocolate Mountain Mudslide, a brownie topped with their signature i-scream, chocolate sauce, nuts and whipped cream. I was going to order the Deathstar Sundae, another brownie topped with i-scream, espresso and whipped cream, but Shawn got the last brownie. Unbelievable! I stole a few bites of his as payback but nuts on ice cream freak me out. The i-scream and brownie were awesome though, and much more than you’d expect from a diner of any kind.

Are you overloaded on sweets yet? Don’t worry, we’re done here for now. Next, we’ll be on our way home!

the elusive vegan brown bread ice cream

Posted by miss alix – 13 Aug ’09

When it comes to vegan ice cream, I’m a huge fan of Scoops. Many vegan ice creams fail in their attempts at creaminess and flavor but Scoops seems to get it just right. Yet, Scoops is by no means perfect. My biggest complaint about this great ice cream shop is that while they have four vegan flavors to choose from daily, they also have about 12 non-vegan flavors as well. Usually, this wouldn’t bother me (at least we get the vegan flavors!) but then my eyes glance over to the non-vegan offerings and I always get jealous. Lemon Hefeweizen ice cream. Thai Iced Tea ice cream. Don’t get me wrong, there are some great vegan flavors as well, but still…there are about 12 vegan combinations in rotation and sometimes I just wish there were more. And then there’s the brown bread. There is always a tub of brown bread ice cream on the non-vegan side. While all the flavors change daily, this flavor is so good that they have it every day. Not for us vegans though. Shawn claims that once upon a time, when the ice cream shop was still new and more experimental he tried the vegan brown bread ice cream, but those days seem to be long gone.

Today, ladies and gentleman, I bring you the answer to the elusive brown bread. There may be other versions of this treat, but this is what I imagine you’d get at Scoops if they did decide to make it. I overheard some of the secrets to what makes it so special and you may be surprised. You may be delighted.

Brown Bread Ice Cream

1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 ¼ cup soy milk, separated
2 cups soy creamer
2 Tbsp arrowroot

½ cup soy milk
1 cup grape nuts

Caramel Sauce

½ cup Earth Balance
2 cups brown sugar
¾ cup soy creamer, separated
2 Tbsp arrowroot

Take 1/4 cup of the soy milk and mix with 2 Tbsp Arrowroot. Set aside.

In a medium sauce pan, mix the sugar and vanilla extract. Cover the bottom of the pan with the sugar mixture and start to melt over medium heat. As the edges of the sugar turns brown, stir gently until all sugar is melted and turns to a dark caramel brown.

Carefully pour in the soy creamer and soy milk. Be aware that the caramel may sputter and pop. Continue to stir until the caramel disolves into the cream. Bring to a boil and mix in the arrowroot mixture. Stir until it noticably thickens. Pour into a seperate bowl, cover and refrigerate until cool.

To make the caramel sauce, again mix the arrowroot with 1/4 cup soy creamer and set aside. Melt the Earth Balance in a small sauce pan. Add the brown sugar and combine. Next add the remaining 1/2 cup soy creamer and bring to a boil, stirring frequently. At this point, add in the arrowroot mixture and stir until it thickens noticably. Put this in another container and refrigerate until cool.

Once the two mixtures have cooled, about 4 hours or so, mixt the grape nuts and the remaining soy milk together. Make sure they are fully coated and let sit.

Next, make your ice cream according to your ice cream maker’s instructions starting with the cream/caramel mixture. As the ice cream begins to solidify, pour the grape nuts in. Once these are mixed in, drizzle in a bit of the caramel sauce to make swirls.

You can eat right away if you like your ice cream soft. I recommend putting into containers, drizzling a bit more caramel in, topping with any leftover grape nuts and freezing.

This is without a doubt the best ice cream I have ever made. Unbelievably delicious. Sweet and slightly savory. The caramel sauce adds a bit of buttery sweetness. You should go make some. It is so good I can’t even describe it to you.

Missing in Action

Posted by miss alix – 5 Jul ’09

You may have noticed that it’s been quite awhile since I’ve posted here, and thought that I’d gone and disappeared without reason. Well here’s my big fat excuse, which I think is a pretty decent one. I’m making a movie. To be a little more specific, I am producing a feature film that Shawn is directing (that we wrote together.) It’s the most work I’ve ever done in my life, and I barely sleep or eat, let alone cook or make fancy things for this blog. But since we had the holiday weekend off, and I didn’t want to keep you all in the dark forever, thinking maybe I’d abandoned blogging entirely, I felt you loyal readers deserved some explanation.

Ok, seriously, you probably didn’t even notice that I was gone, what with all the excitement going on over at quarrygirl (which you should read in case you live in a black hole and haven’t already) and tons of other amazing blogs out there, and well, the 4th of July…


Anyway, enough with the prologue, if I’m gonna blog, it better be about something worthwhile, so here was my one creation I managed to sneak in this weekend. Espresso, chocolate chip, marshmallow ice cream. I had some mini-chocolate chips and thought they would be better in ice cream than anything else, and best in espresso ice cream. I’ve been fantasizing about making this for weeks now. To make things easy, I just used the recipe from Vegan Ice Cream Paradise.

So as the ice cream was freezing up, I decided it was absolutely necessary to throw just a few Dandies in the mix. Unfortunately, this is the point when I discovered that my marshmallows had melted into one mass of sticky marshmallow goo. I had been planning to make some surprise chocolate cookies with chocolate frosting, but that was obviously not happening. I chopped up the mondo-marshmallow into some chunks and threw it in the ice cream mix.

Well, I have to say, I wasn’t thrilled with my results. You’d think that by mixing some of the most amazing flavors possible, there’s no way you could go wrong, but it’s just not true. I think there are two flaws in my concoction. First, it needed WAY more espresso flavor. I put 1/3 cup  espresso(about 2 shots) which is more than the recipe called for, but it was still very creamy and not the intense coffee flavor I desired. Second, I would have preferred the chocolate chips chopped even more, into those tiny little chocolate bits. I will say, the marshmallow was the most genius addition. I just wanted more and more marshmallow goodness. At least now I know for next time…

So on that note, I’m off again, back to the filmmaking extravaganza. I’ll be back to the blogging world in a few weeks.  If you want to know more about the film, you can check it out at brainwashedlove.com or become a fan on facebook. Till then!