It’s summer over here although it feels like autumn some days. The temperatures are around 20°C and I rarely go out without a jacket and an umbrella just to be safe. But I don’t care so much about the weather. As long as I can have my usual summer treats I feel fine. One of them is chocolate ice cream.
To me a good chocolate ice cream has to be rich and creamy and I am quite sure that with this recipe I found what I was looking for. I often make ice creams which look fine but after freezing them properly they come out a bit watery. Instead this one is very creamy and has a deep chocolate flavour. To make this I started with half of the fancy pants vanilla ice cream recipe from a vegan ice cream paradise. (I used a soy creamer with a fat content of 17 % and I used caramel syrup instead of the sugar.
I also stirred in:
4 T natural unsweetened cocoa powder
75 g (3/4 of a Ritter Sport chocolate bar) dark chocolate, melted
1/2 t guar gum*
*I’ve been experimenting with this gum a lot over the last year and if you have never used it before I would recommend to start with 1/4 t and see how it works for you. If you use too much of the guar, the texture of the ice cream gets sort of grainy and stringy.)

When the ice cream was completely cooled, I poured it into big silicone ice cube moulds. But of course you can also just pour it into your favourite air-tight container and scoop it out with a spoon afterwards.

Talking about autumn. This picture looks a lot as if it was taken on a sunny day in autumn, doesn’t it? But in fact it was just the evening light.
Last week I heard people talk about carrot halva. Dino of the Alternative Vegan podcast talked a bit on how to veganize this Indian dish and loveliebutterfly blogged about her mother making such a treat for her. Now carrots in deserts scare me a bit and I think I couldn’t handle all those carrots that would be necesarry for such a carrot halva. But as you see I am working on it and so I tried to create a muffin which might imitate the carrot halva taste. (Even if only in my fantasy because I never had carrot halva) Dino suggested to veganize it with the help of some coconut milk and I think the idea of combining coconuts and carrots finally got me.

Golden Coconut Carrot Muffins (makes 6)
loosely adapted from Susan’s Carrot Spice Muffins

Preheat oven to 200°C /400°F and grease a muffin pan.

sift together in a bowl:
120 g ( 1 cup)flour
10 g (1 T) soy flour
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1 pinch salt

in your food processor or blender combine and blend until creamy:
60 g (1/4 cup) silken tofu
130 g (1/4 cup) brown rice syrup*
70 ml (1/3 cup) plain or vanilla soy milk

*These muffins are just slightly sweet. If you want them sweeter fell free to add more sweetener or replace the rice syrup with agave syrup.

add wet to dry ingredients and add:
2 T slivered almonds
50 g (1/2 cup) grated carrots
45 g (1/2 cup) dried, shredded coconut
1/2 t almond extract

Mix everything until combined but to not overmix. Pour into prepared muffin pan and bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.