Kinako-vanilla chocolate chip ice cream

Hi!

If you already know what (and how ridiculously delicious!) kinako is and just want to skip ahead to the recipe, by all means scroll away!

I first made kinako ice cream 6ish years ago when working in an ice cream shop in Copenhagen specialising in flavours and ingredients from around the world. We were celebrating the shop’s birthday and together came up with a handful of new flavours for the display. I can still remember the reactions when presenting kinako “it is a powder made from roasted, finely ground soybeans.” There were lots of skeptical looks and wrinkled noses - until we gave them a sample of the ice cream. Toasted and nutty and a little sweet, the typical comparison is to peanuts, but - in my opinion - so much better.

Kinako ice cream is amazing on its own, but toss in a vanilla bean and it becomes a little lot more sophisticated. I love geeking out on vanilla and used beans from Uganda in my ice cream because the chocolatey, nutty flavours pair beautifully with the kinako and chocolate chips, but really, any planifolia vanilla (save your Tahitian beans for something else!) will work.