Easter food is all about chocolate.

You can find chocolate bunnies and eggs in all different shapes, sizes, and flavours all over the supermarket once the valentines stock rolls out. Easter is all chocolate all day all over. I mean there’s hot cross buns too that actually make a lot more historical sense as an Easter tradition than chocolate but for the sake of this post let’s forget about them for a minute.

Ice Cream is not exactly an Easter tradition but by now I’m sure you’ve noticed that when it comes to holiday foods I struggle to stick to tradition. I’ve been craving ice cream, guys. Like seriously, the cravings have been unreal. There are dairy free ice cream options available to me sure, but my student budget cannot accommodate paying up to R100 for a tiny little tub of ice cream. I can’t bring myself to pay so much for so little when I can pay roughly the same price to make ice cream that’s double or even triple that size by myself. So to celebrate Easter this year I made ice cream. (because I didn’t want to make hot cross buns again)

To be very honest with you, I was so scared to make vegan ice cream. This was my first attempt at doing so and I had no idea how things would turn out. I tried to do as much research as possible and what I found was that a lot of recipes for vegan ice cream contain a lot of coconut. That’s all fine and nice but I don’t want my ice cream tasting like coconut if I want it to be flavoured with chocolate and quince. I had a similar problem before I went vegan and ice cream recipes called for a million egg yolks which resulted in eggy tasting ice cream. I was not down. So you can understand my fear of messing up. I had been burnt too many times and did not want to go down that path of disappointment again because making your own ice cream from scratch is a bitch if you have a bad recipe. You’ll be left with an unwanted coconut or egg flavour and tonnes of regret. Spoiler alert: this is not one of those bad recipes.

I did the math, risk assessment and analysis and found -dare I say it- the best damn chocolate ice cream I have ever made in my life. And it’s vegan! I got the recipe down! And just in time for Easter. It’s a no churn ice cream so you don’t even need an ice cream maker to make it. It’s rich and creamy with no coconut flavour drumming on your taste buds. Just pure chocolate goodness complimented by sweet, fruity and slightly spicy quince. Divine, ladies and gentlemen! Divine! So creamy, so indulgent, so luscious. The best form of chocolate you can consume this Easter.

Chocolate and Quince Ice Cream

Ingredients

• 1 can coconut cream chilled in the fridge for 24 hours
• 2 1/2 cups sweetened almond milk
• 1/4 cup poached quince syrup
• 1/4 cup agave nectar
• 2 tsp corn flour
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 tbsp coconut oil
• 1 slab (100g) 70% dark chocolate chopped
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups poached quince cut into small pieaces depending on how chunky and full of tasty bits you like your ice cream

method

• Okay first things first if you don’t have an ice cream maker, take a metal bowl and put it in the freezer for 24 hours. If you have an ice cream maker place the bowl in the freezer for 24 hours.
• Open the can of coconut cream and scoop out the fleshy, meaty, cream part of the cream only and leave the liquidy “water” behind. Place that thick cream in a heavy based, medium sized pot. To the pot add the rest of the ingredients except the chocolate and the salt.
• Place pot on a medium to high heat and bring to a boil while whisking constantly trying to prevent and get rid of any lumps. Once things have come to a boil reduce the heat and let cook until the mixture thickens and can coat the back of a spoon. If you dip a spoon into the liquid, then draw a line with your finger across the spoon and that line stays then your liquid is the correct consistency and is ready.
• Once cooked, remove from heat and stir in the chopped chocolate and salt. Pour the ice cream into a bowl passing it through a sieve to get rid of any lumps. Cover in cling wrap making sure the cling wrap is actually touching the ice cream and place in the fridge to cool completely.
• If you have an ice cream maker, make ice cream according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Stir in the poached quince once the ice cream is done before you place it in a storage container to freeze.
• If you do not have an ice cream maker, place the ice cream in the metal bowl that you threw in the freezer the previous day. Whisk and stir well and place the ice cream into the freezer for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes whisk the ice cream to get rid of any ice crystals and put it back in the freezer. Repeat this every 30 minutes until the ice cream is the consistency of ice cream. Just before the ice cream is done, stir in the poached quince and place it in a storage container and freeze.
• Serve with more poached quince.

makes about 1 litre

Top Tip: Take a scoop of ice cream and sandwich it between a toasted hot cross bun. Thank me later.