If you’re the kind of ice cream lover who thinks the more butterfat and egg yolks in a pint the better, you’ll be tempted to skip the vegan chapter of the new “Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream” cookbook (Ecco, 2015). Why contemplate vegan roasted banana ice cream when there is a recipe for the original dairy-rich version 60 pages earlier?

That was my attitude when I first dived into the book, a detail-oriented tome by Laura O’Neill, Ben Van Leeuwen and Pete Van Leeuwen, with Olga Massov. Ms. O’Neill and the Van Leeuwen brothers own the popular Van Leeuwen ice cream shops in New York and Los Angeles, and a fleet of buttercup-yellow ice cream trucks.

Their earnest book offers 100 recipes for signature ice creams, sauces and other confections. Gleefully, I marked the flavors that I couldn’t wait to make — rhubarb crumble, brown butter pecan and their superior fresh ginger, with its bright, clear flavor punctuated by chewy bits of the candied root.

Image Credit... Sonny Figueroa/The New York Times

I earmarked that vegan roasted banana, too, but in the name of thoroughness, not because I believed it could possibly be as good as the silky, not-too-sweet custard-based recipes I was testing as the summer days grew hotter and longer.