Root Beer Float Experimentation
Jul. 11th, 2011 03:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fenchurchSo, what's a girl to do when summer has finally arrived and there are a number of cans of Hansen's Root Beer sitting in the pantry collecting dust? When there's an allergy to cow's milk involved, the obvious answer is to go in search of the perfect ice cream substitute for root beer floats!
So, here's the list of what I've tried... along with my opinions on how the stuff works as a straight ice cream substitute and how it fared once root beer became involved.
First up, was a Purely Decadent's coconut milk based vanilla ice cream. I had really high hopes for this one, because it's absolutely fantastic when eaten by itself. A lovely dense, creamy texture that melts well in the mouth and, of course, the coconut milk adds a little something extra to the vanilla flavor (when I get soymilk hot chocolate at Starbucks I always have them add a shot of coconut for that very reason). Even better, it's not horribly expensive and does occasionally go on sale. However, when root beer gets added... it just sort of dissipates. There's a bit of an influence on the flavor of the root beer, but that creaminess just vanishes and the ice cream itself melts away fast. VERY disappointing. I'll still be buying it to eat as ice cream, though.
Next I picked up some Almond Dream vanilla... Um, yeah. I'd never tried it before and won't be getting it again. Wow, was that bad! The vanilla flavor was awful, the texture was grainy and fake and, needless to say, it didn't improve any with the addition of root beer. Passing on this one entirely (in fact, I hated doing it but I ended up just tossing what was left in the carton into the trash. Blech).
LaLoo's goat milk vanilla ice cream - You know, I actually like the "goaty" taste of goat's milk... and I even love the taste of goat milk ice cream. But goaty goat milk ice cream and root beer? Um, no. Just like when I tried making goat milk based frosting to go on a chocolate cake, it wasn't objectionable, but it just tasted wrong. I think I'll stick to eating the ice cream as ice cream for those times when I want a real treat (the stuff is horribly expensive, so I don't get it often).
And finally, So Delicious soy-based vanilla ice cream. By itself, it's okay. Sort of like cheap cow's milk ice cream... but add in the root beer and it's perfect! It stayed creamy as it started to break down in the soda, but didn't disappear right away, leaving clumps that had some crystallized root beer flavored bits, just like with real ice cream! And, best of all, it was the cheapest of all the options I tried! Seriously, one quart of the stuff was less than the price of a pint of the goat's milk version.
Obviously, that list is not as exhaustive as it could be. There's no Rice Dream ice cream and no hemp milk ice cream... that's mostly because I found something that worked and didn't feel like trying any more. It was pretty interesting to actually go about comparing the various "ice cream" alternatives in a row like that, though.
Crossposted from my Livejournal
So, here's the list of what I've tried... along with my opinions on how the stuff works as a straight ice cream substitute and how it fared once root beer became involved.
First up, was a Purely Decadent's coconut milk based vanilla ice cream. I had really high hopes for this one, because it's absolutely fantastic when eaten by itself. A lovely dense, creamy texture that melts well in the mouth and, of course, the coconut milk adds a little something extra to the vanilla flavor (when I get soymilk hot chocolate at Starbucks I always have them add a shot of coconut for that very reason). Even better, it's not horribly expensive and does occasionally go on sale. However, when root beer gets added... it just sort of dissipates. There's a bit of an influence on the flavor of the root beer, but that creaminess just vanishes and the ice cream itself melts away fast. VERY disappointing. I'll still be buying it to eat as ice cream, though.
Next I picked up some Almond Dream vanilla... Um, yeah. I'd never tried it before and won't be getting it again. Wow, was that bad! The vanilla flavor was awful, the texture was grainy and fake and, needless to say, it didn't improve any with the addition of root beer. Passing on this one entirely (in fact, I hated doing it but I ended up just tossing what was left in the carton into the trash. Blech).
LaLoo's goat milk vanilla ice cream - You know, I actually like the "goaty" taste of goat's milk... and I even love the taste of goat milk ice cream. But goaty goat milk ice cream and root beer? Um, no. Just like when I tried making goat milk based frosting to go on a chocolate cake, it wasn't objectionable, but it just tasted wrong. I think I'll stick to eating the ice cream as ice cream for those times when I want a real treat (the stuff is horribly expensive, so I don't get it often).
And finally, So Delicious soy-based vanilla ice cream. By itself, it's okay. Sort of like cheap cow's milk ice cream... but add in the root beer and it's perfect! It stayed creamy as it started to break down in the soda, but didn't disappear right away, leaving clumps that had some crystallized root beer flavored bits, just like with real ice cream! And, best of all, it was the cheapest of all the options I tried! Seriously, one quart of the stuff was less than the price of a pint of the goat's milk version.
Obviously, that list is not as exhaustive as it could be. There's no Rice Dream ice cream and no hemp milk ice cream... that's mostly because I found something that worked and didn't feel like trying any more. It was pretty interesting to actually go about comparing the various "ice cream" alternatives in a row like that, though.
Crossposted from my Livejournal
