Rock The Bike

Vegan Huckleberry from Little Panda Craft Ice Cream

Craig and Sha Myers are the brains behind Little Panda Craft Ice Cream, located in Missoula, Montana. So not only is Missoula home to the bicycle touring HQ of the nation but also, pedal-powered ice cream! The two combined are enough to make me consider relocating to the Big Sky State.

Little Panda is no longer operating, but they were located at the Original Missoula Farmer’s Market, in the food court area, right next to the Burlington-Northern Railway building. 

Little Panda’s Ube Ice Cream!

It bears noting that we asked Little Panda for their Ube recipe but since this is one of their tastiest, flagship flavors–they rightly kept it under wraps. 

But wait, there’s more!

Check out this vegan, ice cream recipe Craig and Sha have so sweetly shared with us: their most authentic, Montana flavor, Huckleberry!

This recipe makes a 1.5 gallon batch.
 
Ingredients:
 
4 – 14 oz cans of coconut cream (you can use ALL coconut milk but we like the extra coconutty creaminess with the coconut cream)
4 – 14 oz cans of coconut milk
– 4 cups of sugar (depending on your sweet tooth)
3 cups of Huckleberries (Blueberries sub in well)
2 vanilla beans scraped
3 tsp. of lemon juice (optional)
 
To prepare:
First make the Huckleberry compote. To do this, heat a 1/2 cup of water, on a medium-low flame in a large sauce pan. Then add a 1/2 cup of sugar (you can use honey as an alternative sweetener) to the water. Once the sugar is fully dissolved, add 3 cups of huckleberries. Use a wooden spoon to smash up the berries in the simmering mixture. When the berries are good and smashed and everything looks good and sauce-y, pour into a glass container and chill overnight. You can add a squeeze of lemon to the compote for extra zazz (about 3 tsp.) but it’s not necessary.
 
To make the ice cream base, pour 3 cans of coconut milk into a blender. Add 1 cup sugar, the vanilla bean seeds and half of the compote. Blend until smooth. Pour into gallon pitcher. Repeat with 3 cans coconut cream with 1.5 cups sugar and other half of compote. Blend until smooth, and pour into the same pitcher with the first mixture you made. Add the last cans of coconut milk and cream to the pitcher, as needed. Chill for a few hours in a refrigerator.
 
After the mixture is done chilling, pour it into your Icycleta Ice Cream Bike Attachment and pedal to create this deeeeelicous Little Panda summer favorite! Vegan, non-dairy and gluten free varieties of Huckleberry has been a popular flavor regularly selling out at the Original Missoula Farmer’s Market.
 
 
Shake Variation: is to stop churning a little early and you have Huckleberry Shakes! A true Montana classic!
 

Enjoy from Little Panda!

 

Little Panda Founders and Friend!