Raw Chocolate-Almond Ice Cream

I am in a very peaceful mood today. Two reasons: I was on a five hour writing jag last night. I managed to get four chapters of a story written. Yay! And I made raw chocolate-almond ice cream from a Raw Food Living recipe. When I was writing, I kept thinking "This is great! Three chapters! Now four! And sweet homemade ice cream in the morning!" If you haven't guessed it, I'm still bouncing off the walls at the prospect of getting two or three more chapters written today. But enough about the story writing. On to the ice cream!

This is the original recipe from Raw Food Living:

Chocolate Ice Cream

For all you chocolate lovers out there, this one's for you! I actually used cacao powder in place of the cocoa powder. I think carob powder or finely ground cacao nibs would work well too.

Ice Cream Recipes
Ingredients:

1 3/4 cup cashews or pieces
1 3/4 cups purified water
1 cup maple syrup
2 tsp vanilla flavor
1/4 tsp almond flavor
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Directions:
1. Combine all ingredients in a blender.
2. Pour into an ice cream maker and freeze according to instructions.

The adjustments I made:
1 cup of almonds, ground up on the ice crush setting on my blender
1 cup tap water
2/3 cup Wholesome Sweeteners Organic Blue Agave Vanilla Flavored Syrup
1 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp Cook's Pure Chocolate Extract
1/3 cup Hershey's Natural Unsweetened cocoa powder

-I knew maple syrup wouldn't go over well with the AMW family, hence the change to vanilla syrup. I switched to almonds because that's what I had handy.

-Before pouring the vanilla syrup, I sprayed my measuring cup with cooking spray. I saw that on Martha Stewart the other day. It made pouring and later cleaning up much easier!

- I should have used a food processor instead of a blender. My blender made the almonds powder fine, but not the buttery consistency I needed. The ice cream came out creamy and absolutely delicious, except for the subtle almond powder grit. Maybe I'll use almond butter next time ?

- Lacking an ice cream maker or large metal bowls (as I've seen recommended elsewhere), I grabbed the top pot of a double boiler, lightly sprayed it with cooking spray and poured in the ice cream batter. I covered the top with aluminum foil and left it in the freezer overnight. The ice cream scooped out quite easily today.

I was pleasantly surprised to find such a simple, tasty ice cream that didn't require eggs, milk, cream or rock salt. Definitely try this one for yourself!

*12/14 update: I made this recipe a second time, but used peanut butter instead of almonds or cashews. Total perfection! I went back and forth between "Nom nom, this tastes like Nutella!" and "Nom nom, this tastes like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup!"