Vanilla and Chocolate Popsicles or Pudding | Dairy Free

Whether you’re hankering for a cold, creamy fudgsicle, vanilla ice cream on a stick, or a cold glass of pudding, this fits the bill. It’s made without milk or refined sugar and it’s quick and easy. Once you’ve soaked your cashews, you’re a blender whirl away from licking rich pudding from a spoon, or with a little more patience, cold, creamy “ice cream” on a stick.

Something magical happens in the smash up of dates, cashews, avocado, and coconut milk. The vanilla “batter” is faintly reminiscent of vanilla cupcakes and the chocolate definitely tastes like you’re licking a bowl of rich brownie batter. Don’t ask me why that is, but it’s all good in my book. If you’re not a big fan of coconut, no worries. This does not taste the least bit like coconut — all the creamy, but none of the coconut. If you’ve made coconut milk based ice cream and didn’t care for that hint of grittiness, there’s none of that here.

Makes about 3-1/2 cups.

BASIC VANILLA PUDDING/ POPS
Ingredients
1 c pitted soft medjool dates, packed
1/2 c raw cashew pieces
1 14-oz can full-fat coconut milk, divided
1 ripe avocado
2 t vanilla
pinch of sea salt

CHOCOLATE PUDDING/ POPS
Same ingredients as above plus 1/4 c raw cacao powder (or cocoa powder), or more to taste.

Directions
Soak cashews in lightly salted warm water (about 1 t salt to 1 c water) overnight or a minimum of 4 hours.
Rinse and drain cashews.
Put dates, cashews, vanilla, and half the coconut milk in a high speed blender, and blend until smooth. (You may need to stir occasionally).
Add avocado and remaining coconut milk and blend again until completely incorporated.* (If making chocolate pudding/pops, add cacao powder before blending).
Chill and eat.
For popsicles, spoon mixture into popsicle molds or dixie cups with popsicle sticks. Freeze until set.

*At this point you can make both vanilla and chocolate pops with one batch:
Spoon half of the vanilla mixture into molds.
Add 2T cacao powder to the rest of the batch and blend again. Spoon into molds.

I have no pictures of my humble dixie cup popsicles. You can see Sarah’s Pinterest worthy ones here. Either way, these are lick-the-bowl worthy.