When I was in Tokyo, I fell in love with Crunchy Pumpkin Party, which is a not too sweet squash ice cream laced with Oreo-like chocolate cookies. This year, I challenged myself to make a vegan version with oat milk. See below for the recipe I used.

Useful thing I learned along the way is that vegan ice cream mix freezes much faster than traditional mix, to the point where it froze immediately when it went into the ice cream maker. I wound up having to mix the cookie pieces into the ice cream by hand.

I like this version better because it is not nearly as icy as my first attempt at Crunchy Pumpkin Party ice cream.

This recipe is based on the Vegan Pumpkin Ice Cream recipe from My Quiet Kitchen and Gretchen’s Vegan Kitchen Oreo cookie recipe.

Cookies

Make these first.

Ingredients

• Organic All Purpose Flour unbleached 1 cup (125g)
• Dutch Process Cocoa * used used Hershey’s Dark Blend ¼ (20g)
• Baking Soda ⅛ tsp
• Sea Salt pinch
• Organic Confectioners Sugar ½ cup + 2 Tablespoons (75g)
• Cold- Earth Balance Vegan Butter *or any vegan butter of your choice 10 Tablespoons (140g)
• Vanilla Extract 1 teaspoon (5ml)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F
2. Combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt and confectioners sugar in a food processor.
3. Add the diced cold vegan butter and pulse to combine. When it is well mixed, incorporate the vanilla extract.
4. Turn the very soft, sticky dough out onto a parchment paper on a cookie sheet, then use a second piece of parchment paper to flatten it out to about 1/4 thickness.
5. Bake in 350°F oven for 10-12 minutes. Once it is cool, put the cookie sheet in the freezer. and then transfer them to a cooling rack while you prepare the filling.
6. When the cookies are cold, crumble and set aside in the freezer.

Ice cream

Ingredients

• 3 cups unsweetened oat milk
• ¼ cup old fashioned rolled oats
• 1/3 cup raw cashew butter
• 1/4 cup demerara sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 1/2 cup baked kabocha squash
• 1 ounce good quality gin or vodka, optional (It prevents the mixture from freezing completely)

Directions

Chill your ice cream bowl the day ahead of time if you have that kind of ice cream maker.

• In a small sauce pan, simmer oats in 1 cup of milk until soft, about 10 minutes. Immediately transfer to a bowl to cool.
• In a blender combine the remaining 2 cups of milk and the cashews. Blend on high until completely smooth. Add the cooled oatmeal, sugar, squash, vanilla, salt, and gin/vodka, if using, and blend again. Refrigerate until cold.
• Churn the mixture according the instructions for your ice cream maker. (Note: my mixture froze pretty much as soon as I added it to the bowl, and I had to cut the cookies into the mixture by hand with a butter knife.)
• Add the crumbled cookies when the mixture is nearly frozen.
• Transfer the mixture to the freezer once done.

Share and enjoy!