Salted Nut & Caramel Ice Cream

We have a friend from our Paleo meet up group that suddenly announced that she was moving out of town. As the ever-loving potluck hosts that we are, we immediately moved to organize a good bye party and asked her what the one request she had for party food. Her answer? Ice cream.

Well, sure. We can do that. The flavor? Surprise me.

In that case, an experiment. Why not combine our sweet caramel sauce (recipe here and in ELaD) with some salty nuts and throw that together with creamy coconut milk. The result was delicious!

Party goers who arrived early watched in anticipation as we put it together in the ice cream maker. A few hours later, they devoured a double batch in mere seconds.

Salted Nut and Caramel (Dairy-Free) Ice Cream

Ingredients

1/4 C chopped macadamia nuts
1/4 C chopped walnuts
1/4 C chopped almonds
1/4 C chopped Brazil nuts
1 Tbsp salt
Alternatively, buy salted nuts of your choosing anywhere

1/4 C warmed caramel sauce (we keep a batch in our fridge, so feel free to make ahead of time, just warm it slightly before adding to ice cream)

2 cans (about 26oz) coconut milk
4 soft fresh medjool dates
1 1/2 tsp good vanilla or hazelnut extract
Optional – adds thickness: 2/3 C raw cashews, preferably soaked for 4-12 hours but if you can’t wait plain raw will work

Instructions

1. ♥ Toss nuts with salt on a baking tray
2. Bake at 300 degrees for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally
3. Let nuts cool or chill in fridge after roasting
4. ♥ Puree coconut milk, extract, pitted dates and cashews together until completely smooth (this took us almost 5 minutes)
5. ♥ Add to prepared ice cream maker and watch with fascination as it churn for 10-15 minutes
6. ♥ As ice cream begins to thicken, add nuts
7. ♥ Pour in caramel in a thin stream to get a ripple through ice cream (when it hits ice cream it will likely harden to a brittle-like texture – this is perfect with the nuts!)
8. When ice cream is finished (just a few minutes to incorporate additions), transfer to serving bowls immediately or let stand-up in the freezer for an hour or two and enjoy!

Invite your littles to help with the ♥ steps! Please note, if you save this ice cream in the freezer for more than several hours it will harden and need to sit-out 10-15 minutes before serving.

The result? Delicious! Who doesn’t love some salted caramel? The caramel hardens into a brittle-like texture, perfect with the crunch of roasted nuts and the cold creaminess of ice cream!

This recipe was inspired by Kelly at SpunkyCoconut. Her Dairy-Free Ice Cream book is PHENOMENAL and we’ve had lots of fun making her recipes and finding inspiration from her ingenious new cookbook.

About Matthew

Matthew McCarry has written 191 post in this blog.

Matt is the husband of Stacy and somehow manages to contribute to this blog in between taking care of three children, producing the Paleo View Podcast and cooking most of the food featured here.

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