When I heard our local Lucky’s Market was closing as a result of the parent company’s bankruptcy filing, I was bummed for the workers and for Tony and me. It was a good store with friendly employees and generally reasonable prices. Its produce offerings especially stood out, though the quality had declined noticeably in the weeks prior to the announcement.
Lucky’s had also been my source for the Good Karma Flaxmilk I use in my Vegan Frozen Desserts. No one nearby sells the plain, unsweetened variety; our local Whole Foods carries only two kinds, and they both contain pea protein, which Tony shouldn’t eat. So a little while ago, I tried making a tangelo-flavored VFD—or as I was inclined to call it, Tangelo Vegan Sherbet—with rice drink instead ...
… and Tony raved about it.
Then I made Chocolate-Ginger VFD, the flavor I make most often, …
… and Tony called it “pure chocolate heaven.” He said it was probably the best dessert I’d ever made and certainly the best VFD.
Tony said he sometimes got a floral note from the flax milk in a VFD; he found the rice milk to be more neutral, a quality I had been aiming for with the flax milk. (If Tony were able to eat most anything, he could become a professional food taster.)
Tony also liked the texture of the rice drink–based VFDs better than those I’d made from flax milk. And I agree; these VFDs freeze smoother and melt easier and creamier.
Rice drink is also generally a little bit cheaper than the flax milk, and it’s more widely available.
So what I’m saying is, the loss of a key ingredient set me on a course for making a major improvement in my VFDs, which brings me to the second point of this post: I’m excited to say I’ve been compiling my VFD recipes with the goal of creating a book. I’ve been fine-tuning flavors and shrinking down the size of VFD batches I created for Huge Hound so they can be produced in a countertop-size frozen dessert maker.
I now need home cooks with a frozen dessert maker to test my recipes. I’m looking to make sure they’re reproducible and will live up to my future readers’ expectations. I welcome feedback on processes, clarity of instructions, or anything else.
If you’re interested in being a recipe tester, please email me at bill@billhawley.net. And if you’re not but know someone who would be, please share this post with her or him. Anyone who tests at least two recipes for me will get a thank you in the cookbook and a free copy.
One final note: Unless you’re a vegan and gluten-free cook and baker, you’ll probably need to purchase a number of ingredients you won’t already have on hand, including xanthan gum, arrowroot, and sunflower lecithin.