Before I started Huge Hound, I'd been making frozen desserts—just for fun—for more than 15 years. I'd started out with dairy ice creams because they're what I knew and had loved since I was a kid.

I began making vegan cookies and other baked goods after meeting Tony, the guy who's now my husband; he can't eat gluten or dairy. Making those treats got me familiar with the various thickeners and stabilizers necessary to bind them together—and that also come in handy in frozen desserts that contain no egg yolks.

So Tony could also enjoy something sweet and frozen, I began making sorbets and, later, coconut milk–based ice creams. Tony and I thought the coconut milk desserts were delicious, but I wanted to create a frozen concoction that tasted only like my flavoring ingredients, with no residual coconut flavor. That led me to experiment with, and ultimately perfect, my creamy vegan frozen desserts.