Vegan Sweet Potato Pie Ice Cream

One of the experimental ideas Pineapple had was to create a sweet potato pie-style ice cream. So we experimented a bit. She gave me a basic idea of what she wanted (sweet potato and cinnamon with the ice cream base) and I tried it out. The first iteration needed cinnamon. The next, needed something crunchy. Finally, it needed some salt and now we have a winner!

The cinnamon and sweet potato really shine in this ice cream. The salt helps keep the sweet potato lively. The texture of the ice cream is amazingly smooth and the mix-in helps you get the crunch that would normally come from the crust of an actual pie. The oat milk is also necessary to help bring in the pie crust flavor.

You will need to cook the sweet potato beforehand. The Ninja CREAMi is not intended to blend anything; a frozen, raw sweet potato will probably damage the machine and would likely give you a fibrous, stringy texture. Cooking the sweet potato in the sous vide will preserve the sweet potato flavor while softening the sweet potato and breaking down the fibers. You could try baking or boiling the sweet potato, but I cannot guarantee the results.

Ingredients

• 1 Medium Sous Vide Sweet Potato
• 1 Cup Oat Milk
• 1 Teaspoon Cinnamon
• 2 Tablespoons Sugar/Maple Syrup
• Salt
• Crunchy Cinnamon Mix-in (preferred: Rise & Fly Cinnamon Cereal, but you can also use cinnamon Rice Chex or some other crunchy cinnamon treat)

Instructions

1. Prepare a medium-sized Sous Vide Sweet Potato
1. This will take 3-4 hours to cook
2. Wait for it to cool (I've prepared mine days in advance and they are just waiting in the fridge)
2. Peel the sweet potato
3. Chop the sweet potato into 3/4-inch cubes
4. Place the cubes into the Ninja CREAMi Pint
1. Leave plenty of space around cubes
2. Don't squish the cubes together
3. We want space around the cubes to be filled in with the Oat Milk
5. Sprinkle 4 healthy pinches of salt across the cubes
1. You might do this by spreading the salt as you layer the cubes
6. In a bowl, mix 1 cup of oat milk, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and 2 Tablespoons of Maple Syrup
7. Pour this mixture over the cubes
1. Tap the pint a little bit to dislodge any bubbles of air trapped among the cubes
8. Freeze the pint for at least 24 hours
1. If the cinnamon rises to the top, put the pint in the freezer for 2 hours, stir the contents, and let it continue freezing for the remaining 22 hours.
9. Using the Ninja CREAMi, process the mixture using the "ice cream" function
1. Rather than giving you an exhaustive list of steps, please refer to the Ninja CREAMi instruction manual on how to go from freezer to processing
10. Add the mix-ins
1. Take a teaspoon and scoop out the center of the processed pint
2. Pour in the cinnamon mix-in
3. Process the pint again with the Ninja CREAMi "mix-in" function
11. Enjoy!