Coconut Bliss & Butterscotch Malts [Recipe]

I keep coming back to ice cream...seriously this is one of the hardest parts of going dairy-free. Well, that and cheese. Anyway I came across Coconut Bliss at my local Jewel (very limited flavor selection, but I believe you can most if not all their flavors at Whole Foods), and decided to give it a try. You guys, this is it! This is seriously the best ice cream sub I have found. The texture and melt are perfect! The only downside is you will definitely get that hint of coconut, it does not go away. I haven't tried every flavor, but of the 6 I've tried so far this has only been off-putting in their Vanilla Island. And in all honesty, it was only an issue for me when eaten plain; I loved topping apple pie with this flavor! If you can have, and like the taste of, coconut, then definitely try this stuff out. They even have ice cream bars and other treats.

Now... ever since I was little, I've loved butterscotch malts. They were a special thing I shared with my dad. Ever since I've been dairy free, I knew this was something I would probably have to give up. However, now that I found an ice cream I like, I was on the hunt to make my own malt!

Butterscotch Malt

2 scoops Coconut Bliss vanilla island
1 cup coconut milk
3 Tbsp non-diastatic barley malt powder
3 Tbsp Jello instant butterscotch pudding mix*

* I plan to replace this with a home-made dairy-free butterscotch syrup next time, but was way too impatient once my malt arrived n_~

My next adventure will be converting a garlic cream sauce to dairy-free. The guys love when I make it with chicken (or sometimes I even make a sort of chicken alfredo), and honestly I love it too. If that is successful, you can expect a new post soon!

Let's Talk Ice Cream

I've been taking a stab at this dairy-free lifestyle for a while now. Everyone has a different reason for making this decision, and for me it was due to allergies. I've had a progressive lactose-intolerance that has been getting worse over time (which logically makes sense: mammals are not meant to imbibe milk after a certain age so most humans do develop some level of intolerance and it does get worse over time as we get farther in years from our milk drinking age). As that has started to affect me more and more, I started moving away from dairy and noticed other health issues arising when I did partake, which lead to an allergy diagnosis. Now, minus milk, I love dairy. Butter is the best, cheese is my favorite snack, and oh man do I love ice cream. So this decision has been forced on me more so than a personal decision; I was alright cutting back but removing dairy entirely was like a slap in the face. Since this happened later in life, I'm well aware of how things should taste and feel, so I am pickier than others for sure. Sometimes I'll make the concession with cheese or butter, limiting my quantities, taking a combo of allergy medicine and lactaid, and paying the price for my decisions. But ice cream...who eats 1 Tbsp of ice cream? So I've been searching for some good replacements.

Cado ice cream had become my hands down favorite. Made with avocado, the texture is perfectly creamy. I am actually inspired to attempt my own at home. The flavors are good too, but very limited. Seriously. There are 3 flavors. The chocolate is divine, and so rich that you really don't need or want a whole lot, which is great because these pints are a tad pricier than others. The mint chip was alright, it would probably be great if I enjoyed peppermint, but I don't. The other flavor, which I have yet to try, is lemon. I also expect great things, but I crave other flavors so have been searching.

So Delicious offers a few varieties. I have only tried their coconut milk and cashew milk varieties. I have no problem with the tastes of either. My issues are more of a texture thing (I'm a very textural eater). The coconut milk ice cream is hard like a sorbet, which is not an initial issue, I just find it to be gumy as it softens up. Generally speaking, this is a problem I have with coconut milk across the board: soups, smoothies, ice cream...there are very few applications where I do not find the texture becoming gummy. I'm sure over time you get used to it, but I'm stubborn so moved on to cashew. This actually isn't bad in terms of texture, just much more similar to a frozen custard so it's a thicker, richer ice cream. Pretty good overall, but I still found avocado to have a texture closer to what I craved.

I've also given Ben & Jerry's almond milk ice cream a try. It's honestly somewhere in between the coconut and cashew milk versions. Admittedly, I started out with chocolate fudge brownie so there was a fair amount going on in that pint. However, texturally I found this to be very pleasing and a happy medium between coconut and cashew. Still not as great as avocado, but definitely a closer and more easily available option. The only real hang up here is that the almond flavor is very strong. Even with all that chocolate going on, the almond came through strong. It wasn't bad, but I can see it being something I won't want all the time.

While shopping around a couple weeks ago I came across Nana Creme. I'm not the biggest banana fan honestly, but I like it in things. I always include banana in my smoothies, am a fan of banana bread, and even like it in a fruit salad. I'm just not a fan of bananas on their own. So, I figured a banana based ice cream would probably be fine, especially as I went with Brownie (which was on clearance at my local Jewel, so bonus!). This was just not for me. The banana flavor was overpowering and I barely noticed the chocolate. My roommate tried it too and he thought the banana flavor was too artificial, like the banana runts. So this brand is a hard pass for me.

My most recent excursion was originally to search for Talenti sorbetto, which someone had posted on the Deliciously Dairy Free Facebook group. Talenti makes a delicious gelato, so I really wanted to try their sorbetto. Unfortunately my local Jewel did not carry the sorbetto, but I did find Sorbabes which is a vegan sorbetto. I grabbed the coffee almond flavor and it was delicious and creamy, very similar to the Hagan Daz coffee ice cream. This might actually replace Cado as my favorite...time will tell!

Now to try out some whipped creams. My boyfriend got me a dispenser for Christmas, and so far I have only tried making a coconut whipped cream. This tasted alright, but I found I had to remove my dispenser about 15-30 minutes prior to when I wanted whipped cream as it got too thick in the refrigerator. This week will be full of some experiments....check back in to see which recipe is the winner!

Kite Hill: Ricotta & Soft Fresh

So I'm torn on Kite Hill. I've been bragging about them for a while, but really I think the brie is where it stops. I've tried out both the ricotta and soft fresh (truffle, dill & chive), and I'm not nearly as impressed as I was with the brie. I'll still give them another try, as it may have been my applications, and I will still try their other offerings, but my current opinion of these 2 is "meh."

Kite Hill Ricotta
I have tried this cheese twice now, with mixed results. My first attempt was in a lasagna. I mixed the ricotta with egg, parsley, salt and pepper per the recipe. I also added some almond milk as I personally found the ricotta too dry. I snuck this into a low carb version utilizing eggplant instead of noodles, but I do want to note I left in the mozzarella and parmesan (baby steps, especially in convincing the 2 guys I live with). I noticed the ricotta tasted differently, but neither guy did, so I am attributing this to my prior knowledge and nervous anticipation. It wasn't bad, although I got sick of it after a while. But since the boys didn't notice I think I will try again without failure in my mind.

My next and most recent attempt over this past weekend was flatbread white pizza. We make a pizza (really an appetizer, but you know how that goes..) using naan as the crust, seasoned olive oil, and a mixture of ricotta and mozzarella. This time I went 100% dairy free and replaced the mozzarella with nutritional yeast to up that cheese taste. Prior to baking, it was alright. Again I found it too dry and added olive oil. After baking I was not happy. Keep in mind, these were over baked, but the dairy versions did not dry out. The dairy-free version dried out and had a weird aftertaste. Part of that was probably the over baking, but the cheese was crumbly and I couldn't get over that aftertaste. The brie had one too but it was easy to get used to. I haven't totally nixed the ricotta, but if I try this recipe again I need to keep a close eye on it and find a better way to add moisture and replace that missing mozzarella (I thought about Trader Joe's shreds which are supposed to melt and don't taste bad, but they really do taste like almond so would not have added to the flavor).

Kite Hill Soft Ripened (Truffle, Dill, Chive)
This I bought to use as a replacement in chicken in pastry (basically seasoned, seared chicken breast and garlic chive Alouette cheese wrapped in puff pastry). I will be honest and say I never got to using this in the recipe. The cheese smelled just right, although I found the texture odd. At first I liked the taste as well, but again there was an aftertaste I just did not like. Maybe I am just not refined enough to enjoy truffle? Also the texture just was not right for this recipe, so between the two I never got any farther. I'm not sure in what application I would use this cheese, but I may come back to the original later.


Now I will say, some of my experience may have been trying to recreate dairy-heavy dishes. I honestly do think trying to make no dairy dishes and/or dishes specifically designed for these alternative cheeses may provide better results. I have also heard that it is better to cut out all dairy for a few months before bringing in these subs as you will compare to the real thing too much and not be able to enjoy them. Given the boys could not tell the difference and only found out about the sub after the fact, I will say there is some rationale behind this idea.

Trader Joe's Mozarella Shreds

So we were exploring Trader Joe's and I went in search of dairy free options. I noticed TJ's has their own versions of mozzarella style shreds, so I picked up a bag of each which were comparable in price to normal shredded cheese (a tad more expensive, but a good deal cheaper than other brands).

Vegan Mozzarella Style Shreds
I've heard a lot of back and forth on Daiya, so I thought I would try a different brand off the bat. Online I have seen these shreds compared to Daiya and the general opinion seems to be they taste similar or maybe a little bit better. Unfortunately I did not like them. Just right off the bat the taste was awful to me, which makes me think I am going to be on that anti-Daiya boat (for shreds, so far no complaints about their cream cheese). I also found the texture to be harder than normal shreds. I picked these up because the bag says they melt and stretch like real cheese, but I never even got to that point :(

Almond Mozzarella Style Shreds
So these are not 100% dairy free. They are 99% lactose free but still contain casein (ingredients include parmesan and pasteurized milk). So while this should be a clear no for me, my allergy is not at a dangerous level and even with intolerance I can handle a small amount of dairy before suffering GI issues. I decided to give it a go, plus it also advertises the ability to melt and stretch like real cheese. Taste-wise, they are fairly bland. They taste more like almond than cheese, which is not necessarily bad but certainly not what I was looking for. The texture is much more like actual shredded cheese though. I haven't tried them on a pizza or anything that requires melting yet, but I'll hang on to them for future experiments. If you can handle small amounts, I would would say give them a try.

Trying out Some Cheese Subs

I was making a bagel today and decided it was a good opportunity to try out some cheeses. Like many, I enjoy cream cheese on my bagels. However, my go to is actually a toasted bagel with butter and cheese (slightly melted). It's like an open face grilled cheese on a bagel. So, you get 3 reviews today!

Chao original slices

This smells fine, kind of like cheese (not bad in any regard). Texture-wise it's a little harder than actual sandwich cheese slices. It melted fine with some heat, but got a bit gummy. It also gets gummy w/ moisture. Flavor-wise, it was meh. I'm not sure what the original flavor is supposed to be, but it was pretty bland. Not bad, just didn't do much for me.

Follow Your Heart American slices

These smelled fine too, more like cheese than Chao. The texture again was a little harder than actual cheese, although not as hard/tough as Chao. Like the Chao, it melted well enough with some heat, although still gummy (not quite as gummy as Chao though). The flavor was a bit better, but that might because they were going for an actual flavor. Kind of like American, although not quite there.

I gave my dog a little piece of each of these. She was like WTF! So...definitely did not fool her. They weren't anything great or special, but I'll probably still give them a chance and see how I feel about them over time. Remember: I was using real cheese just this weekend lol

Overall, they weren't particularly disappointing or anything, and I'm interested in trying the other flavors. They are a bit pricey, and you don't get much in a pack though. I'm also unsure how they would use for sauces etc, but I'm guessing other options might be better

Daiya plain cream cheese

This was the best of the 3 cheeses I tried today. It smelled like cream cheese, had a really great texture, and a pretty good flavor. My only complaint is that I found it a bit sweet. If you've ever had the Philadelphia cheese cake flavored cream cheese, it was more like that than plain. Still good, and would be wonderful in baked goods and desserts, but not quite what I was looking for on my bagel today. I will definitely be using this in the future, for a variety of things from sandwiches to desserts, and I am looking forward to trying some of the other flavors.

Ben & Jerry Dairy-Free Ice Cream

Based off the recommendation of many friends, and given that it is the only other dairy-free option at my Jewel, I picked up a pint of Ben & Jerry's The chunky monkey came highly recommended, but I'm not a banana person so I went for Chocolate Fudge Brownie.

Taste: Holy crap, this tastes just like brownie batter. It's thick and succulent. There is a hint of almond flavor (given that this is made with an almond milk base), so that may catch you off guard at first. However, going in knowing that it should not deter from your enjoyment.

Texture: This is creamier and softer than the So Delicious coconut milk ice cream. When it melted, the texture was as expected. This was definitely closer to ice cream.

Overall: Highly recommended. The almond flavor definitely comes through, so if this is something you dislike stay away. Otherwise the flavors they are offering are good and the texture is wonderful. I will definitely be buying more and trying more flavors as they become available (minus the Chunky Monkey lol).

So Delicious Coconut Milk Ice Cream

Given the results of my recent experiment, I decided to try out a non-dairy ice cream. The Jewel by my house has very few options, including So Delicious (coconut milk) and Lactaid (which defeats the purpose since I'm pretty sure this is an allergy at this point). My two favorite flavors are butter pecan and mint. Luckily So Delicious has a mint chocolate flavor so I picked it up.

Flavor-wise, this is delicious! It does not taste like coconut at all (not that I would mind, but in case you were concerned...). The mint flavor is great and perfectly refreshing. I really love how this ice cream tastes and am definitely curious about the other flavors.

Texture-wise, it's a bit lacking. The coconut milk freezes harder than a dairy ice cream and has more of an initial texture of sorbet. Not that this is a turn-off, but definitely something to keep in mind if you are really craving that creaminess. The part where it started to bug me was as it defrosted and softened up. I usually let my sorbet sit a bit to soften up, and given the lack of dairy it becomes liquidy faster than ice cream, so this is what I was expecting with the So Delicious. Unfortunately it seemed to get gummy as it melted which I found off-putting. Maybe I'll get over this over time, but initially I am not a fan.

Overall: delicious! This is really good. But the texture as it melts will take some getting used to. I will definitely come back to this and give it another try at any rate.