Toasted Coconut Ice Cream

I often buy things at the grocery store that catch my eye, but have no idea what I am going to do with them once I get home.  I usually find something creative to do with these ingredients, but it has caused my pantry to fill up with a lot of useless items too.  In this particular case, I had two cans of coconut milk in my pantry.  I knew I wanted to make something sweet, and I happen to have all of the other necessary ingredients ready in my kitchen for ice cream!  We’ve had a couple of warm days in the Midwest this week, so I feeling like something tropical was in order.  It wasn’t that warm, but we get excited about 50 in Chicago in February.  I adapted this recipe from Clotilde’s Chocolate and Zucchini blog.  She calls it Glace Coco du Placard or Coconut Ice Cream from the Pantry.

Toasted Coconut Ice Cream

– 1 cup unsweetened or sweetened dried grated coconut
– 1 1/2 cups light whipping cream
– 1 small can (13 fl. oz.) good-quality unsweetened coconut milk, I used Trader Joe’s Light Coconut Milk
– 1 to 2 tablespoons light rum, to taste
– 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
– 3/4 cup sugar (use 1/2 cup sugar if using sweetened coconut)

Makes about 1 liter (1 quart).

Pre-freeze the bowl of your ice cream maker.

Toast the grated coconut in a dry skillet until golden and fragrant; set aside to cool completely.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the cream, coconut milk, rum, vanilla, and sugar until blended. Refrigerate until well chilled.

Whisk again before using, and freeze using your ice cream maker. Halfway through the churning, when the mixture has thickened to a custard-like consistency, pour the toasted coconut into the ice cream maker so that it blends into the ice cream.

The husband and I enjoyed this right out of the container, but a nice serving suggestion would be to make an “Almond Joy” sundae by topping a couple of scoops with chocolate syrup and sliced almonds…because sometimes you feel like a nut.