Fauxstachio Soy Nut Ice Cream

Ingredients:

This is a surprisingly fine-grained, creamy dairy-free frozen custard. It started out as an attempt at fake pistachio ice cream, using soy milk and dried edamame "soy nuts," and it turned out way better than I ever expected. My unsuspecting test subject, when given a taste of the finished product, said it was "really good pistachio ice cream" without being told what it was supposed to be. I can't promise it'll fool all your friends, but it may fool some of them!

- 2 cups "Plain" Soymilk
- 4 eggs
- 1 teaspoon corn starch
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1/2 - 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (omitted in mine because the soymilk was already vanilla flavored)
- roasted, salted edamame
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- optional: 2-3 drops green food coloring

Step 1:

Start by separating your eggs.

Yolks go in a bowl, whites have no application in this recipe so save them for a meringue or something.

Step 2:

Pour the powdered sugar and corn starch over the yolks.

Step 3:

And whisk to combine. This may take considerable muscle power (or a hand-held blender) as the yolks will be somewhat reluctant to absorb all that sugar. Perseverance will be rewarded.

Step 4:

Put the soy milk and salt in a medium saucepan and heat until steaming hot (but not quite boiling).

Step 5:

As the milk heats, consider a suitable platform for your bowl of egg yolks. It will be considerably agitated and you may not have a hand free to hold it, so you might want to put a towel down as a sort of "foot" for the bowl.

Step 6:

Place the bowl on top of this, whisk at the ready.

Step 7:

Once the soy milk is hot, take a smallish ladle and scoop some up.

Step 8:

Start beating your yolk mixture. DO NOT add the hot milk to the yolks before you start whisking or you will end up with scrambled eggs. Slowly, carefully drizzle the milk into the yolks, whisking as you go. Slowly add more hot milk until you've added about half of it to the yolk mixture. Congratulations! You have just tempered your custard, allowing the egg yolks to reach a high temperature without curdling. (Sorry for no action shots, but again, this isn't something I can do and photo at the same time.)

Step 9:

Pour the tempered egg mixture into the saucepan with the remaining milk. Return it to low heat, stirring constantly, until it reaches desired thickness. What is desired thickness, you ask? Consult your friendly neighborhood spatula! Run your finger horizontally through whatever sticks to the spatula. If you get a continuous line through the material with no drooping or dripping, you're there.

Step 10:

Pour your custard into a wide pan and put it in the fridge to chill. This would also be the time to add vanilla extract if you need/want to.

Step 11:

This gives us time to prepare the chunky bits. Pour some (how many is really up to taste) roasted edamame into a plastic bag and put it on something non-fragile.

Terminate with moderate prejudice. Don't go hog-wild with the beat stick, because doing so will result in teeny tiny bits of nut instead of nice-sized chunks. Just crush, don't maim, kill, or destroy.

Step 12:

Pour them out of the bag.

Step 13:

Go through the rubble. You are looking for the inner meat of the "bean," seen on the right. Remove and dispose of the hull, seen on the left. These are relatively tasty, but their texture is not conducive to ice cream enjoyment.

Step 14:

Set aside the "nut" fragments for later use.

Step 15:

With luck, your ice cream base will have cooled by now. If so, fire up your ice cream machine and start it churning. Add the food coloring now if you choose to use it.

Step 16:

(If you lack an ice cream machine, you can freeze it mostly-solid in the flat pan, then put it through a food processor and finish freezing for a similar consistency. Add the nuts after processing if you take this course.) This mixture is somewhat hesitant to freeze; it took about 15 minutes before it even started thickening. Once it does start to thicken, toss in your dried edamame bits.

Once the ice cream machine/food processor has done its work, freeze at least an hour before serving.

Step 17:

Serve:

Step 18:

Close up of Soy Nut Ice Cream.