This vegan coffee ice cream is so good no one would ever guess it’s vegan. Rich and creamy and loaded with coffee flavor.
We were out for drinks with a friend and he told me that he has been making the BEST vegan ice creams lately.
So you know, I’m always willing to up my game when it comes to ice cream (or anything really!), so I asked him to tell me everything. He told me he bought a book called Artisan Ice Cream and has been loving the recipes. He said you use a mixture of homemade cashew milk and coconut milk to create the base and then add the flavorings from there.
This way you don’t get any of the ‘coconut’ flavor that you often do get when using only coconut cream/coconut milk for the base. The mix of cashew milk and coconut milk create a totally neutral creamy base that is ideal for vegan ice cream.
Well…let’s just say that after running a food blog for a few years now, I know that some of you don’t like the taste of coconut. So I was very intrigued, and bought the book myself, and picked up some good tricks that I also incorporated into our recipe for cashew ice cream.
I do recommend this book, but just a note that it’s not all vegan ice creams, there are 9 vegan ice cream recipes in the book and there are some vegan sorbets as well, but the majority of the recipes are non-vegan.
This vegan coffee ice cream recipe is adapted from their recipe book and I must say it has been getting rave responses from everyone who has tried it.
How To Make Vegan Coffee Ice Cream
You will find full instructions and measurements in the recipe card at the bottom of the post. This is a summary of the process to go along with the process photos.
Homemade Cashew Milk:
You start off by making homemade cashew milk. It’s important to use a homemade version because you’re going to make it so much thicker and creamier than what you’ll buy in the shops.
Basically you’re going to make more of a cashew cream than a milk or at least somewhere in the middle there!
Put the cashews on to soak. Put them into a bowl and then pour boiling water over them and let them soak for 1 hour. Then drain them and throw them into the blender along with some fresh water and blend until completely mixed in.
Ice Cream:
Add your freshly made cashew milk to a mixing bowl along with coconut milk and mix together.
Then add white granulated sugar to a pot along with a little water and heat, stirring continuously until the sugar is melted. You’ll know it’s melted when your wooden spoon is no longer making a scratchy sound at the bottom of your pot.
Add chopped cacao butter, coconut oil, coffee powder, cocoa powder, coconut sugar and salt and mix everything together, letting all the ingredients melt together.
Pour that out into your bowl with the cashew milk/coconut milk mix and use an immersion blender to blend it perfectly. If you don’t have an immersion blender, then just use your regular blender for this part.
Put the whole bowl into the freezer for 15-20 minutes for the mixture to chill. Just be careful that you don’t forget it in there.
After 20 minutes if it has gone hard along the sides, just whisk it up again, and pour the mix out into your ice cream maker and churn until it reaches a soft serve consistency. This could take anywhere from 25 minutes to 45 minutes depending on your ice cream maker.
Transfer the ice cream to a loaf pan and smooth down with the back of a spoon and then cover with foil and place into the freezer to set. It will usually take at least 6 hours in the freezer to set, but it’s ideal if you just leave it there overnight.
Scoop and serve!
Recipe Success Tips
Make your own homemade cashew milk as the recipe guides you to do. Don’t use a pre-made version, it will not be as good.
Full fat canned coconut milk. We need high fat ingredients to create a creamy ice cream. You can even use coconut cream if you like. Either one will work great.
Coconut sugar provides a wonderful depth of flavor but can be switched with light brown sugar in a pinch.
Have all your ingredients prepared and ready to go before you heat the sugar. You need the cacao butter chopped up into pieces so that it will melt in quickly. Cacao butter is kind of a magical ingredient in this ice cream and creates a wonderful consistency.
Ice cream machine. We use a Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker which works fantastically and usually only takes around 25 minutes to reach soft serve consistency.
Storing Instructions
Keep it stored in the freezer and ideally consume within 1 week. Yes, it’s ice cream, but it’s still best when fresh!
More Vegan Ice Cream Recipes
- Vegan Pistachio Ice Cream
- Vegan Avocado Ice Cream
- Vegan Vanilla Ice Cream
- Vegan Coconut Ice Cream
- Vegan Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
- Vegan Chocolate Ice Cream
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Vegan Coffee Ice Cream
Ingredients
Homemade Cashew Milk
- ⅔ cup Raw Cashews (100g) soaked in hot water for 1 hour
- ¾ cup + 2 Tablespoons Water (210ml)
Ice Cream:
- 1 ½ cups Homemade Cashew Milk (360ml)
- 1 ½ cups Coconut Milk (360ml) Canned, Full Fat, Unsweetened
- 1 cup White Granulated Sugar (200g)
- ¼ cup Water (60ml)
- ¾ cup Cacao Butter (100g) Chopped
- ½ cup Coconut Oil (109g)
- ¼ cup Instant Coffee Powder (14g)
- 1 Tablespoon Cocoa Powder
- ⅓ cup Coconut Sugar (50g)
- 1 teaspoon Salt
Instructions
- At least the day before you want to make ice cream, make sure the bowl for your ice cream machine is placed into the freezer so that’s it’s ready to go the next day.
- Prepare your homemade cashew milk. Add the cashews to a bowl and then pour over boiling water and let it sit for 1 hour. Then drain the cashews and add them to the blender jug along with ¾ cup + 2 Tablespoons fresh cold water and blend very well until completely blended in. You should not have to strain this milk at all. It should be totally smooth. Use all of this milk in your ice cream.*
- Add the homemade cashew milk to a big bowl along with the coconut milk and set aside.
- Then get all your other ingredients ready before proceeding.
- Add white granulated sugar to a saucepan along with the quarter cup of water. Stir constantly until the sugar is melted. You’ll know it’s melted when the wooden spoon is no longer making a scratching sound along the bottom of the saucepan.
- Add cacao butter, coconut oil, instant coffee powder, cocoa powder, coconut sugar and salt and whisk in until everything is melted together.
- Pour this out into the bowl with the cashew milk and coconut cream.
- Use an immersion blender to blend everything together. If you don’t have an immersion blender, then transfer everything to your blender jug and blend it and then return it to the bowl.
- Take the whole bowl and place it into the freezer for 15-20 minutes so that the mixture gets chilled. When the mixture is chilled you might find that the mixture has started to harden along the sides, just stir it up well again and then pour it into the ice cream machine.
- Churn the ice cream according to the manufacturer directions until you reach a soft serve consistency. Depending on the ice cream machine you have this could be anything from 25-45 minutes.
- When it’s reached soft serve consistency, pour it out into a loaf pan and smooth down with the back of a spoon, cover and place into the freezer to set completely.
- When it’s set, scoop and enjoy.
Notes
- If your batch of cashew milk makes slightly more or slightly less than 1 and ½ cups (360ml), don’t worry about it. It should be close, and if so, then just use it all in the ice cream. The difference would come about from the amount of water your cashews absorbed while soaking and if it’s a little more or less, you may end up with a little more or less volume. If it was a fairly big difference (like ⅓ cup short) then you could use a little extra coconut milk to compensate. Even if you do have to use a little extra coconut milk to compensate then don’t worry, mixed with the cashew milk it will still be a very neutral base for this ice cream.
- Prep time excludes time the spent soaking the cashews and the time spent chilling the mixture or for the ice cream to set completely in the freezer. It is for the hands on time, including churning.
- Recipe adapted from the book Artisan Ice Cream.
This recipe is outstanding! I have made it many times for non-vegan friends and many have said it is the best ice cream they’ve had. It is so creamy and the coffee flavour is just perfect. Unfortunately, I cannot find cacao butter in the country I live in at the moment, so I just add a little more coconut oil (a tad less than the suggested amount of cacao butter) and it works just fine. Thank you so much for sharing your recipes. All of your other ice cream recipes I’ve tried are fantastic.
Thank you so much Lorena! So happy to hear that! 🙂
Plan to make this soon. May make adjustments based on others comments. I may try decreasing the sugar amount and brewing some strong coffee with the 1/4 cup of water to enhance the coffee flavor. Will report back!
Sounds great! Let us know how it goes! 🙂
What can substitute cocoa butter? I’m having trouble finding it in my country
Hi Neta, there isn’t a good substitute but you can leave it out. The texture will not be quite as awesome, but it will still be entirely delicious!
This got rave reviews. I followed the recipe exactly, apart from using Tesco instant coffee granules from the tea/coffee aisle instead of instant coffee powder (not sure what that is, or if there’s a difference in strength?).
When I tasted the mixture before freezing it didn’t taste strongly enough of coffee for my liking, so I added the same amount of coffee granules again. 28g of instant coffee granules was definitely enough! It came out dark and strong. No discernible coconut or chocolate taste.
I don’t have an ice cream maker, so I whizzed the freezing mixture up with my immersion blender a couple of times in the first few hours. It was incredibly forgiving of this. No ice crystals. Gorgeous texture. After it was set solid it was easier to cut a chunk out with a knife than a spoon to serve, presumably because I’d not churned in much air.
I’ll try replacing the white sugar with coconut sugar next time, which will be soon!
So glad you liked it Gemma! Yes coffee granules/coffee powder is just a different way of saying the same thing, so that would’ve been just fine. So glad you got it to the right strength of flavor. And also awesome that it worked great even without churning. The firmness though is just a thing that is common with vegan ice creams. It usually needs a few minutes to soften before scooping and a heated scoop as well!
Amazing even using half of the white sugar! It was my first time making it and I will certainly repeat it!
Awesome! Thanks for sharing!
I hate the taste of coconut. Will I taste the coconut in it because of the milk?
I don’t think there is even a trace of coconut flavor in the end result. However, you can omit the coconut milk and make extra cashew milk if you like. 🙂
The consistency is grainy – not creamy. I substituted maple syrup for the white sugar. I blended the cashews until they were really creamy and refrigerated the mixture overnight – it was like heavy cream this morning. I used all other ingredients as they were listed in the recipe. I have a Cuisinart Ice Cream maker, so I used that to churn. Any suggestions?
Hi Carole, this recipe was not tested with maple syrup. I have used it in a small quantity before in other ice cream recipes where the base ingredients were heated as well. Maple syrup has a high water content and can cause ice crystals to form in your ice cream, creating a grainy texture.
Could I use coconut sugar instead of normal sugar?
You probably can! 🙂
Do you know what would happen if you tried using fresh coffee grounds (e.g. espresso) instead of instant coffee? I’m having trouble making peace with the idea of instant coffee – but I’ll do it if that works better! Thanks. 🙂
Hi Ariel, I’m not sure though I would certainly use espresso powder in this, that would be fine. I’m just not sure if coffee grounds are ground fine enough to work well in this.
I’m not sure if I’m missing this info somewhere in the recipe, but how big is a serving size exactly?
Thank you!
About a half cup.
this sounds fabulous dying to try it but i dont have an ice cream machine can i still use this recipe and keep whisking freezing whisking freezing ? or is there another method i can try. thanx !
Hi Camille, the whisking freezing whisking again method is the way to go if you’re not using an ice cream machine! Hope it goes great! 🙂
Is it possible to use all coconut sugar instead of white sugar? Thanks!
Hi Joanne, I think it is possible yes, but will change the flavor a bit. 🙂
Simply the best recipe ever! Ice cream was so creamy and the best part is that its scoop-able right out of the freezer. I can’t wait to use this base to make more flavors.
Fantastic! Thanks Roshae! 🙂
I don’t have a sweet tooth. Can I just add enough sugar for my taste? Or use honey instead? Thanks! Patricia
Hi Patricia, I don’t know about using honey, you may be able to but it also may affect the texture and/or how it sets. I’m not sure since I haven’t tested it that way. However, you can reduce the sugar as you like and tweak it to your taste, that should be just fine! All the best!
Simply Divine!