I Scream! You Scream! We All Scream, For a Cashew Disaster?

On vegan ices.

Vegan cooking is like being MacGyver.

Every week, MacGyver would build himself some sort of gun/car/laser/power-saw using nothing but a drainpipe, a tennis ball and a toothpick. Sure, given the parts for a gun/car/laser/power-saw, anyone could build one. But it wouldn't be a very entertaining show if it was just some guy building things from their constituent parts.

And that's what vegan cooking is. It's trying to make everyday things, without everyday parts. Anyone can bake a cake; but try baking a cake without any eggs, butter or milk. Try baking a cake with a drainpipe, a tennis ball and a toothpick.

Vegan ice cream is somewhat of a challenge. A dessert made by freezing various sweetened animal products, when said products are removed, doesn't leave much behind. Most vegan ice cream alternatives feature coconut milk, soy milk, rice milk drink ("rice dream") or cashews.

With this in mind, your anonymous blogger and The Vegan set to work on a vegan ice cream - orange flavour, with a cashew base. The Vegan had the plan; doughboy was relegated to sous-chef for this endeavour.

The cashew were soaked in orange juice (too much orange juice) for roughly half an hour, and then transferred to the food processor, along with the juice. After much blending and re-blending, we were left with a lumpy paste, which tasted far too much like cashew, and not nearly enough of orange. Apprehensively, this mixture was transferred to the ice cream maker. Apparently, we hoped it was magic.

The result was unpleasant.

We are not disheartened; previous success has been known in this area. MacGyver must have made a few lasers-from-contact-lenses-and-a-mag-lite that didn't work, right?

I hope that my next post on this topic will be a rallying cry of success, that our trials will produce a positively scrumptious frozen vegan-friendly dessert, and not another cashew disaster. I hope next time, MacGyver bursts out of the garage armed with a flamethrower.