sweet potato milk for sweet potato pie ice cream(dairy-free)

I discovered the joys of potato milk by accident at my day job when a customer asked for a milk alternative that was grain-free, soy-free, and nut-free. I then thought to myself that it would be cool if you could make other types of potato milk like sweet potato milk or even purple potato milk. 

Sweet potato milk tastes starchy but it's creamy and only needs as much sweeteners as you'd like. It looks like orange juice though, which I found fascinating.

Sweet potato pies are hard to come by where I'm from since they're more of a Southern dessert around the holiday season and I've never actually tried an actual one before. But that dessert in ice cream form with the milk being completely made from a sweet potato just makes it all extra, save for the fact you need a lot of elbow grease to scoop the ice cream out. That's a pain in the butt but at least the ice cream was delicious. Eat it quickly since it melts fast. 

My dad thought the ice cream tasted sour for some reason. But to be fair, by the time I recorded him trying it, his bit of ice cream was nearly melted.

You will need: 

For the cooking equipment: 

A vegetable peeler
A medium saucepot
A measuring cup
Blender
Strainer
A medium bowl
A large bowl
Aluminum foil
Ice Cream Maker
Ice cream tub

For the sweet potato milk: 

1 large sweet potato
3 cups of water(to start with)
Pinch of salt
Enough cold water to get 4 cups of water in total
1/4 cup slivered almonds(for calcium)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tbsp. honey

For the ice cream

Sweet potato milk(see above)
4-5 ripe bananas
2 tbsp. granulated sugar
Pumpkin or apple pie spice
1/4 cup graham cracker pieces
Additional graham cracker pieces

To make the milk: 

1. Peel the sweet potato completely using a vegetable peeler. 
2. Bring 3 cups of water to a boil in a medium saucepot and then place the peeled sweet potato and salt into the boiling water. Cover the sweet potato with enough water to submerge it. This will stop the water from boiling so wait until it starts to boil again. Let the sweet potato boil for 20-30 minutes. It will be done when you can poke it easily with a fork. Lower the flame if the water starts to overflow!
3. Reserve the water the sweet potato has been boiling in and retrieve the sweet potato from the saucepot and into a large bowl. Rinse it off with cold water to cool it down. You can drain that water off. 
4. Cut the sweet potato into pieces and discard any brown pieces. Rinse the pieces under cold water. 
5. Pour the reserved water into a measuring cup and place the measuring cup in the fridge for 20 minutes to let it cool off. 
6. Pour the reserved water into a blender and add enough cold water to get 4 cups' worth in the blender. Put the sweet potato pieces, slivered almonds, vanilla extract, and honey into the blender. Blend the mixture until all the of the sweet potato has been blended. 
7. Strain the mixture in the blender through a strainer and into a large bowl. Now you got dairy-free milk made from 1 sweet potato! 

To make the ice cream: 

1. Place the sweet potato milk into the blender. In a medium bowl, mash the bananas up with either your hands or a potato masher.
2. Place the mashed bananas into the blender, along with the sugar and pie spice.
3. Blend everything until you get nothing chunky left in the blender.
4. Pour that mixture into a large bowl and cover it with aluminum foil. Place it in the fridge overnight to let it chill.
5. Turn your ice cream maker on and only pour enough of the ice cream mixture to fill 80% of the churning bowl. You can drink the remaining liquid like a smoothie. 
6. Churn the ice cream for 11 minutes. Then put in the graham cracker pieces. Let the ice cream churn an additional 3 minutes. 
7. Turn the ice cream maker off and put half of the ice cream into an ice cream tub. Top that ice cream with additional graham cracker pieces and top those pieces with the remaining ice cream.
8. Put the lid on the cover and let the ice cream freeze overnight. 


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