This cashew ice cream is rich and creamy and made with homemade cashew milk for the creamiest, most perfectly textured ice cream ever!
This cashew ice cream is absolutely divine.
I got some great tips for making vegan ice cream from a book called Artisan Ice Cream and incorporated them into this recipe.
The main takeaway I got from the book was to use cacao butter in vegan ice cream, and this, along with homemade cashew milk, creates a really great ‘chew’ to vegan ice creams.
Well… let’s just say I didn’t know I had been missing the ‘chew’ but yeah, this has some chew!
It is creamy to the max with amazing texture and it has all the cashew flavor you can dream of. And before you say, but…aren’t cashews quite neutral in flavor? Well, yes.
But this cashew ice cream uses cashew butter made from roasted cashews and that really makes that cashew flavor pop.
How To Make Cashew 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:
First, you need to make some homemade cashew milk.
Start off by soaking cashews in hot water for one hour. Place the cashews into a bowl, pour over boiling hot water from the kettle and then leave them to soak for one hour.
Then drain the cashews and add them to a blender with fresh water. Blend until super smooth and creamy. The cashews blend into the water perfectly and you don’t even need to strain it like you do with other nut milks.
Ice Cream Mix:
Add your prepared cashew milk to a big bowl along with canned coconut cream. Set aside.
Add white granulated sugar and water to a saucepan and heat, stirring constantly until the sugar has melted.
You’ll know it’s melted when your wooden spoon is no longer making a scratchy sound along the bottom of your saucepan.
When the sugar is melted, add chopped cacao butter, coconut oil, cashew butter, salt and coconut sugar and whisk it in until it’s all melted together.
Pour that out into your bowl with the cashew milk and coconut cream.
Blend with an immersion blender until well mixed.
If you don’t have an immersion blender then you can transfer all of it to your regular blender and blend.
Churn:
Place the whole mixing bowl into the freezer to chill for 15-20 minutes so that your ice cream mix is nice and cold before churning. If it hardens along the sides then just whisk it up again.
Pour the ice cream mix into your ice cream machine and churn it until it reaches a soft serve consistency.
Then smooth it down into a loaf pan, cover and place into the freezer until set.
It can take several hours to set completely.
Ingredient Notes
Homemade cashew milk – is crucial because the version you’re going to make is really more like a cashew cream than cashew milk. It’s extremely rich and creamy. The cashew milk you buy from the store will never be as thick and creamy as the one you’ll make.
Coconut sugar – really provides a wonderful depth of flavor to this, but you can switch for brown sugar in a pinch.
Cashew butter – should ideally be made from roasted cashews to really get that cashew flavor going. You can also make your own homemade cashew butter.
Recipe Tips
Soak your cashews. This is a crucial step in getting the right consistency to your homemade cashew milk.
Have all your ingredients measured and weighed. It’s ideal to have everything prepared before you start, because once that sugar is melted, you need to move fast adding in your cacao butter, coconut oil, cashew butter, coconut sugar and salt to the saucepan and melting it all together.
Freeze the bowl of your ice cream maker. Don’t forget to freeze the bowl of your ice cream maker in advance (at least overnight).
Ice cream maker. We have a Cuisinart ice cream maker and I highly recommend it. It churns the ice cream into the perfect soft serve consistency in record time (usually around 25 minutes).
Storing Instructions
Even though it’s ice cream it’s still best eaten within the 1-2 weeks after making it. Any longer than that and ice crystals may start to develop.
More Vegan Ice Cream Recipes
- Vegan Peppermint Ice Cream
- The Best Vegan Ice Cream
- Vegan Banana Ice Cream
- Vegan Coffee Ice Cream
- Vegan Pistachio Ice Cream
- Vegan Avocado Ice Cream
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Cashew Ice Cream
Ingredients
For the Homemade Cashew Milk:
- 1 cup Raw Cashews (150g) Soaked in hot water for one hour
- 1 cup + 2 Tablespoons Water (270ml)
For the Cashew Ice Cream:
- 2 cups Homemade Cashew Milk (480ml)
- 1 cup Coconut Cream (240ml) Canned, Unsweetened
- 1 cup White Granulated Sugar (200g)
- ¼ cup Water (60ml)
- ¾ cup Cacao Butter (100g) Finely Chopped
- ¼ cup Coconut Oil (55g)
- ½ cup Cashew Butter (120g)
- 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 it’s ready to go the next day.
- Prepare your homemade cashew milk. Add 1 cup of 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 1 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 the milk in your ice cream.*
- Add the homemade cashew milk to a big bowl along with the coconut cream and set aside.
- Then get all your other ingredients ready before proceeding.
- Add the 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 in the cacao butter, coconut oil, cashew butter, coconut sugar and salt and whisk in until everything is melted together.
- Then 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.
- Place the bowl 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.
- Pour it into the ice cream machine and churn 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 into bowls and enjoy.
Notes
- Cashew milk. If your batch of cashew milk makes slightly more or slightly less than 2 cups, 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 big difference (like ½ cup short) then you could use a little extra coconut cream to compensate. If it’s a little over, then just use it all and don’t worry about it.
- Coconut cream. You can also use canned, full fat, unsweetened coconut milk.
- Cashew butter. It’s ideal to use a cashew butter made from roasted cashew nuts. You can also make your own cashew nut butter.
- Prep time excludes time spent soaking (for the cashews) and time spent chilling or setting. It is for the hands on time, including the time spent churning.
- Method inspired by the book Artisan Ice Cream.
I have a question. You mentioned in the description that you use roasted cashews, but in the recipe it calls for raw cashews. Does it matter which one I use?
I just mentioned that the cashew butter (which you can buy pre-made) should be made with roasted cashews so it has that flavor. But the cashew milk has to be made with raw cashews.
Is it possible to substitute the coconut cream, and coconut oil for anything else? I’m allergic to coconut (a travesty, I know) but I’m also lactose intolerant, hence the look into vegan ice creams…
Hi Caz, you could leave out the coconut oil, it’s there for texture, but the difference would not be major. Coconut cream could be substituted for any other non-dairy cream or you could make more cashew milk (increase the recipe by half) and use an extra cup of that.
I made this recipe today. The cashew milk turned out really smooth. I used Xylitol instead of sugar as I am fighting cancer. The ice cream turned out to be too sweet for my taste so I think I will omit the coconut sugar or use less xylitol next time. The finished product was super creamy. I had added some raw cocoa powder.
Yummmmm.
Glad it worked out well! Thanks for sharing Gwen!
What is a substitute for coconut cream? I don’t tolerate coconut or almond. Thank you!
Hi Ginelle, is there another non-dairy cream like soy that you could use instead? Alternatively you can use more cashew milk.
Hello, I tried this recipe and it went wrong somewhere!
Probably in the fat melting or blending steps as I had a lot of balls of fat (cacao butter, coconut oil, cashew butter etc…) which give a granular, not smooth texture.
I have a commercial grade ice cream churner and that couldn’t recover it as the cold temp kept ingredients separated!
Also used sugar substitutes (Stevia and Maple syrup).
Lots of expensive ingredients in this, so keen for your advice so I don’t screw it up next time!
Hi John, I don’t know what impact substituting the sugar for stevia and maple syrup would have here. It’s not something I’ve tested and a change like this can absolutely have a big impact in a recipe. Additionally, the sugar, cacao butter, coconut oil, cashew butter and coconut sugar all have to be melted together until totally smooth and then immersion blended into the room temperature cashew milk and coconut cream. If there was any separation of ingredients, churning it would not solve the issue, it would need to be blended up again but provided everything was melted down properly and immersion blended into the milks, there shouldn’t be any separation of ingredients. Hope this helps! All the best! 🙂
Any substitute for cacao butter?
Not really, you could leave it out but you will be sacrificing some of the richness and compromising the texture a little bit. 🙂
Had the family over and they just loved this winning dessert. Will definitely be making it again. Would love to know how to replace the sugar with something else to make it sweet. I’m sure everyone loved it because it had white sugar and coconut sugar in it though! 🙂
So glad you liked it! You could experiment with different sweeteners, but I’ve only made this with the sugars in the recipe. 🙂
My first attempt at vegan ice cream and it was amazing! I added about 90g of cacao, and folded in oreos and chocolate nibs to make it Triple chocolate ice cream!
Sounds divine! Thanks so much for sharing and the awesome review. 🙂
I’m excited to try this recipe! Two things; I’m assuming cane sugar can be used to replace the white sugar? What can be used to replace the fat content in the coconut cream? I’m trying to stay away from coconut products. Thanks!
Hi Danielle, yes that’s fine with the sugar, you could make extra cashew milk and not use the coconut milk, but there is also coconut oil in this recipe and I don’t think a different oil would work at all.
Hi
In the final flavor is the coconut strong? Do you get the chocolate flavor from the cocoa butter? Trying to understand what is most prevalent flavor ?
Thanks
The prevalent flavor is creamy cashew! You don’t taste the coconut or the cacao, they add to the creamy texture. 🙂
Can you tell me if you use the entire can of coconut cream including the liquid under the cream or do you just scoop off the cream on top?
Hi Lisa, you don’t need to let it separate, just shake up the can and use a cup of it.
Hi there,
I’m so excited to try out this recipe! I was curious as to how much it yields in terms of container size. Thank you!
Hi Kristy! I’m not sure of the volume exactly, but it is enough to fill a 9×5 loaf pan to the top!
Incredible! So creamy and I love the subtle roasted cashew flavor.
Wonderful! Thanks Rachel. xo
Hi Alison. Your recipe made me smile… Here in Alsace, in the east of France, the temperature has dropped to 2 degrees … It is very, very cold !! But as soon as the sun comes back and the heat with it, I’ll try this great recipe!!!! Have a nice weekend. Isabelle
Haha yes, probably not ice cream weather! Hope you love the recipe when you do try it though, thanks so much for posting! xo
Hi Alison,
First I must say I think you are incredible your Recipes are amazing..
I want to try this ice cream but I am on no sugar do you think it would work if I used maple syrup or monk or dates.
Thank you.
Hi Debra, I think you could blend in some dates, that would be lovely. It would change the method slightly, instead of melting the sugar, perhaps you could just blend everything together in a high speed blender. 🙂