What do you get when you blend up a popular nut, a green vegetable and Lisa Hannigan’s new album? A Nobel prize in chemistry.
Please don’t’ ask me to explain what happens at an atomic level – I haven’t got the foggiest. The end result feels inexplicably gifted, like Allan Rickman and Sharleen Spiteri dirty dancing at the petrol pump.
Music can heighten the enjoyment of a recipe. Watch what happens to your appetite when you play Bob Dylan on repeat – your synapses will feel like a potted geranium dropped from six stories high. Don’t get me wrong. I have all his albums. But just not in the kitchen. Crank up the volume on Lisa Hannigan when you’re at the stove, and her groove will magically transfer to your fingertips and dimples. Food just tastes better. She gives me wings.
When cashew nuts are soaked for six hours, they blend up like thick cream. Cashews are the David Blaine of vegan ice cream. Magic.
Add to this sumptuously whipped avocado and sticky honey, and you’ve got yourself a blueprint for any dairy-free ice pop.
Cashews have a neat supply of copper, a rather important trace mineral for our bods. Copper is a Big Wig for a whole suite of essential enzymes, such as superoxide dismutase. SOD (geek speak for superoxide dismutase y’all) buoys up our mojo and energy production. And you know what? A good handful of cashew nuts rings in at over 100% of your recommended daily intake of copper. Score.
Dark Chocolate & Mint Ice Cream
I’ve added matcha green tea powder for its groovy glow (and to give my frontal lobe a good rave). Then great big chunks of 70% dark chocolate, because St Patrick is all about chocolate. I. Think.
Drop the coconut milk, if you prefer less ice in your popsicle.
100g unsalted cashews
2 avocados
1 tin full-fat coconut milk
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
5-8 tablespoons rice malt syrup (for IQS fans) or raw honey (stronger tasting)
Pinch of sea salt
1 teaspoon matcha green tea powder
½ teaspoon real peppermint extract
40g your favourite dark chocolate
Soak your cashews in filtered water for anything between 6 and 12 hours (overnight is perfect). Drain and discard and soak liquid. Tip the softened nuts into a high-powered blender and add the remaining ingredients, all except for your chocolate of course. Blitz the bejaysus out of it. When it’s silky and creamy, stir through your chunks of chocolate.
Spoon into lolly molds and freeze for 6 hours before annihilating in one glorious binge. Just kidding! Keep a lid on that lust!
1 Comment
Amazing! Something I’ll definitely try.