Chocolate-dipped ice-cream tacos – two versions!

July 20, 2014 by Margaux 2 Comments

Whilst making tofu sprout tacos the other day I was reminiscing about the wonderful, store-bought ice-cream tacos I used to munch as a kid. My experiences with tacos have therefore usually been sweet in nature, which is why I’ve been determined to stock up on taco shells again and try out a vegan and healthy version of this glorious food memory. Obviously the originals were ridiculously rich and creamy and just brimming with all sorts of indulgent elements, but there’s no reason one can’t still enjoy ice-cream tacos without whipping out the stretchy pants.

My NuNaturals giveaway ends 21 July, so get cracking and enter – 4 lucky winners get a whole host of delightful treats delivered straight to their doorstep. The competition is open worldwide, because that’s just how amazing NuNaturals is 😀

For these delectable treats I insisted on two versions, because I’ve been drooling over the idea of making lemon curd again, and because I have a ton of dates lying around that needed to be rehomed into my stomach. YUM YUM!

Ingredients (makes 4 different stuffed taco shells):

Ice-cream:

• 1.5 cups sliced and frozen bananas
• 2 droppers NuNaturals Liquid Vanilla/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 1/4 non-dairy milk
• Optional: 1 TBSP alcohol of choice/spirits

Chocolate top:

• 40-50g carob chunks/chocolate of choice, melted
• 1/4 cup sunflower seeds or nuts of choice, measured then shelled
• 1/4 cup dried cranberries

Filling # 1:

• 1/3 cup of dates, soaked for a few hours, then blended til smooth (add some water/non-dairy milk to make it smoother if need be)
• 1/2 TBSP cocoa powder

Filling # 2:

• 1/3 cup of lemon curd – I used Jessica’s lemon curd sauce, just adding 1 TBSP more corn starch and replacing the shortening with coconut oil. Yum! It came out nice and thick 😀
• 1-2 tsp lemon zest

How-to:

1. Prepare your shells and place them upright in a loaf pan.
2. Blend your ice-cream ingredients: add more or less non-dairy milk until the ice-cream is soft-serve consistency – if the ice-cream is too stiff you’ll have trouble not cracking your delicate taco shell.
3. Spoon enough ice-cream into the shell (up to the edges) to go halfway.
4. Spoon in 1 heaped TBSP of your filling in the middle (not touching the sides where it could seep out), then top with the rest of the ice-cream and up to the edges all round. Press in seeds and cranberries into the top of your ice-cream.
5. Place the shells in the freezer (in the loaf pan) whilst you make the chocolate.
6. Melt your carob chunks then take out the shell. With a teaspoon drizzle chocolate along the edges of the taco shell all round. You can also cover the visible ice-cream altogether if you like!
7. Return to the freezer for another 20 minutes or so before serving. I cut both in half with a sharp knife so I could test out both, because wowza – it’s filling!

 Phew! Now I remember why I restrict my fruit intake – I got seriously high after just tasting and nibbling along the way when making this, and was too full to go beyond a bite of each half, but OH my goodness. DELISH! My favourite is the lemon curd version, because I’m a sucker for citrus, but the chocolate date version is just amazing as well. When one can’t choose simply have one half of each 😀

After all this munching and licking out the food processor, I have to agree with Clem’s philosophy that indulgent foods = essential food group, because one really has to spoil yourself to thrive mentally. Best of all, these treats are really “guilt-free”, if I can use such a term, because it’s natural, happy ingredients all round. Rawsome!

Tra la la! Yum! I actually have a ridiculous overabundance of treats like this in the house, so much so that I called Man-thing down today to explain to him everything that’s in the fridge & freezer. My official reason was to just make sure he was made aware of food items (because I’m mostly in charge of what is made/bought), but in actual fact it was a secret plea for him to eat as much of everything as he can so that there’s more space for new creations. He immediately saw through me, but that’s ok – a valiant effort was made, to the point where said he simply couldn’t eat any more. Yikes, next time I’ll specify he doesn’t have to eat it all in one day. :p

Oh, and because they rock my world and have wormed their way solidly into my heart, our two little foster kittens, Noir and Pabla! ❤ I’m terribly proud of myself because we bathed them today and had to take off the collars and I still managed to tell them apart by their meows! :p

What do you use lemon curd for?