What You Will Need

Blender
Ice-Cream Maker or Bear Shaped Ice Pop Molds + Popsicle Sticks

Ingredients

1 1/2 Cup Soy Milk
1 12oz. Box Soft Silken Tofu (do not drain the tofu or use low fat tofu)
6 Tablespoons Crushed Roasted Black Sesame Seeds
2 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract
2 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil
6 Tablespoons Sugar or 1/3 Cup Maple Syrup

Instructions

1. Put everything in a blender. Blend until smooth.
2. Put into ice-cream maker, or bear shaped ice-pop molds.
3. Play some more Kingdom Hearts as you wait for it to freeze.
4. Eat!

Verdict:

The hardest thing about Snow Bear ice-cream, was getting the consistency right. I actually never made tofu based ice cream before, so I had to futz a lot with the amount of soy milk I put in. I’m not entirely sure that one and a half cups is the sweet spot but it was somewhere between one and two cups. So start with one cup and add more if it’s too thick. Just be careful not to make it too thin.

That being said, I don’t know if you’ve ever had black sesame ice-cream before but it’s amazing. It’s actually one of my favorite flavors. I’ve never had tofu based ice-cream before, but the best way I can describe it is halfway between frozen yogurt and pudding. Other than the weird texture, I have to say it tasted pretty good. I’d probably go with a more traditional frozen custard recipe for my black sesame ice-cream in the future, but if you want the authentic Kingdom Hearts experience, it has to be tofu based.

For the record, I used sugar as my sweetener and an ice-cream machine to freeze my ice-cream. I haven’t actually tried it with maple syrup, but a lot of recipes online, as well as some vegetarian friends of mine, tell me that it not only tastes better as a sweetener than plain old sugar, but it also makes the ice-cream smoother. I’m not entirely sure if the ice-pop molds will work, but given enough time they should. Tofu ice-cream does in fact freeze solid so I don’t see why it wouldn’t. I just prefer to eat my ice-cream in a bowl rather than on a pop.

Also, you might have a hard time finding pre-roasted, pre-crushed black sesame seeds. If that is the case, you can get normal black sesame seeds, and roast them yourself. Simply pre-heat a pan over medium-high heat, and then put the seeds in. Stir as they roast, but don’t let them burn. It won’t take very long so just try to judge. Once they are roasted, put them in your blender before anything else, and blend them until they are crushed. There ya go! Instant roasted and crushed black sesame seeds.

If you are really obsessive compulsive and want your snow bear ice-cream to look EXACTLY like the picture from Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, then I would suggest making my recipe above, and this recipe for tofu chocolate ice-cream as well. You can put the chocolate in the areas of the bear mold that are brown, the sesame in the areas that are white, and use chocolate pieces or licorice or something for the eyes and nose.

Anyway, I actually liked this more than I liked the Volcano Curry … sorry … Bueno Volcano recipe, becuase I like smooth creamy nutty ice-creams more than I like spicy or chocolate based ice-creams. However, I also think that vanilla is superior to chocolate in every way, so that’s mostly a matter of taste. I also like that it’s a lot harder for a sesame flavor to be overpowering, as opposed to say a dark spicy chocolate flavor. Overall, I would say this was a success.