Coconut Ice Cream is my best trick

Coconut Ice Cream

I've got quite good at making ice cream after spending the summer making it for my lovely sister-in-law Louisa. When you have treatment for cancer it can change the way food tastes, and how much you want to eat. So I started making ice cream, because it was all I could do to give a little pleasure to a friend when  pleasure was thin on the ground. I said to Louisa it was my only trick, and she said it was a good trick.

Louisa said the Coconut Ice Cream was the best, combined with chocolate. The chocolate melted too fast, so I'll just write up the Coconut here.

The recipe has the usual ingredients, sugar, egg, milk and cream with flavours. It's a soft scoop ice cream so it has an extra ingredient, corn syrup or powdered dextrose monohydrate - also called medicinal glucose - don't buy the variety that contains vitamin supplements.

RECIPE

Ingredients

• 70g/ 0.5 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 300ml / 1.25 cups
• 3 tbsp/ .0.25 cup plus 2 tsp powdered dextrose monohydrate (or 130ml corn syrup)
• 185ml/ 0.75 cup whipping cream/double cream
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• makes about 750ml or 3 cups of ice cream
• 6 tbsp coconut milk powder

Method

• In a large heatproof bowl beat the sugar and eff together
• in a pan bring the milk to just below boiling point
• pour the hot milk into the egg and sugar mixture in a slow stream beating constantly
• stir in the coconut milt powder
• put the milk, sugar, coconut and egg mixture over a pot of simmering water until itreaches 85C/185F degrees or it coats the back of a spoon so that if you draw your finger through it it keeps the shape. The bowl mustn't touch the simmering water.
• remove the milk mixture from the heat and stir in the powdered dextrose (or corn sytrup), then chill.
• once chilled stir in the vanilla, coconut and cream and freeze - you can still freeze or pour the mixture into an ice cream machine and churn for about 20 minutes or until it has the consistency of softly whipped cream
• transfer the ice cream into plastic freezer boxes and freeze
• once you're ready to eat the coconut ice cream take it from the freezer and it'll be ready to eat immediately

I'm about to make it again. I'll take photos and add them in a while.

I inherited an ice cream machine from my mum along with an ice cream cook book: Ices the definitive guide by Caroline Liddell and Robin Weir.  It's got the history of ices along with a long list of ice creams that I've been working my way through. I've had to replace the ice cream machine. It does take up a lot of room.