Vegan Ice Cream: Peanut Butter

## Variant 1 (3/3/23):

I1: ¼ cup peanut butter
I2: ⅜ cup sunflower seed oil
I3: 1 cup sugar
I4: 3 cups not-milk
I5: 1 tsp salt
I6: ½ tsp vanilla

I(1-6)
O1: Blend
O2: Churn

### Result

A bit on the icy side (but fine), and peanut butter flavor was a bit on the mild side. Tasted vaguely like Reese’s.

## Variant 2 (3/5/23):

I1: ½ cup peanut butter
I2: ¼ cup sunflower seed oil
I3: 1 cup sugar
I4: 3 cups not-milk
I5: ½ tsp salt
I6: ¼ tsp vanilla

I(1-6)
O1: Blend
O2: Churn

### Result

Softer. Better flavor. Might try full tsp salt next time. Keep vanilla where it is. Could maybe bump up the sunflower seed oil to ⅜ cup. (Also, vanilla is what creates the Reese's type flavor.)

Try going full peanut butter with no sunflower seed oil in the next batch!

## Variant 3 (2/26/25):

I1: 192g peanut butter
I2: 2+ cups fluid (water or non-dairy milk; fill to 3 cups with pb)
I3: 1 cup sugar
I4: 1 tsp salt
I5: 1/4 tsp vanilla
I6: 1/2 tsp molasses

I(1-6)
O1: Blend
O2: Churn

### Result

On the soft side, but otherwise really good. Strong pb flavor. Salt/vanilla/molasses all felt like a bit much out of the blender, but once things set, I felt like it was in a good place.

## Variant 10? (4/25/26):

I1: 115 g peanut butter powder
I2: 2.25 cups water
I3: 220 g sugar
I4: 100 g sunflower oil
I5: 1/4 tsp salt
I6: 1/4 tsp vanilla
I7: 1/2 tsp molasses

I(1-7)
O1: Blend
O2: Churn

## Global Note

This is a recipe that went through major overhaul late summer of 2025. There are many missing variants between 3 and my speculative 10. I was told that the pb ice cream was too firm. I knew that it was firm out of the freezer, but felt ok letting it sit out on the counter for a few minutes. But then I was asked to fix this.

Why is it that pistachio and walnut seem to make fine vegan ice creams, but peanut butter behaves differently? I thought maybe, using natural peanut butter, I may not to take from the bottom or top of the jar (with incomplete mixing). No dice. Maybe a thoroughly mixed jar? Maybe grinding peanuts from scratch? Maybe more fat? Nothing worked.

I found out that peanut butter has a high solid freezing content at residential freezer temps. This mean that the peanut butter ice cream was good, but was often too hard coming straight out of the freezer. If you don't mind letting your peanut butter ice cream thaw, that's fine. But, if you want scoopable ice cream right out of the freezer, you need an alteration.

The solution is a deconstructed-reconstructed pb. Peanut Butter powder has the fat extracted from the peanut butter powder, and then you can add whatever fat you want. Our go-to fat source is sunflower oil. The process is to high speed blend all of the ingredients, and then churn. It's very simple.

Note, some peanut butter powders use coconut sugar. Don't use those pb powders if your recipient has a coconut intolerance.