One of my little sisters turned 34 last week. Celebration! Yay! Birthday!
Wait. Stop. Celebration on the Whole30, a nutritional intervention which removes grains, dairy, and sugar for 30 days? BAD planning! Didn’t I ever mention you need to plan these dietary interventions around holidays, vacations, and birthdays? Crisis averted by making coconut milk ice cream with sweet fruit, no sweetener. However, it does taste much better with honey, maple syrup, or even some Stevia drops.
I call it “Honest” ice cream because you can say all of the ingredients, and you know what they are. Simple and honest. That’s how we like our ingredient labels and lists. And it is ice cream, even if it isn’t dairy cream. The coconut milk is full of “coconut cream.”
I use Natural Value coconut milk that I buy in bulk from Amazon. (We have Amazon Prime and so there is no shipping and handling.) Natural Value has only coconut milk and water as ingredients, no BPA and no guar gum. The BPA is a potential hormone disruptor and the guar gum can cause GI issues in people. Natural Value also has an organic version, but it’s not on Amazon Prime. By the way, I have NO connections with any of the products I use or mention. I just like them.
Coconut milk ice cream is VERY forgiving to make, just as long as you keep the ice packed around it while it’s in the ice cream freezer processing.
Throw in a little of this and that and you cannot go too far wrong. Only got 1 and 1/2 cans coconut milk? Forgot the vanilla? Mis-measured the honey? Want to try cocoa powder? Throw in an extra ripe avocado? Try your mom’s recipe with the eggs, just using coconut milk instead? Cut the recipe in half? No worries. The recipe can take it.
Recipes for fruit and plain versions follow.
Fruit-Flavored Ice Cream
2 cans FULL fat coconut milk
2 cups of very ripe, sweet fruit (We’ve used peach, mango, strawberry, blueberries, and banana as mixtures.)
1-2 Tbsp vanilla
1/2 cup of honey (but it will tolerate more or less!)
Blend fruit, vanilla, and honey until smooth in a blender. Add in coconut milk and blend again.
Freeze in an ice cream maker.
Ours freezes nicely, usually harder than soft serve (if I’ve been diligent keeping the ice and salt in the ice cream maker), but not as hard as hard serve.
Serve topped with bananas, strawberry sauce, or make up a chocolate sauce if you’re allowed to splurge.
When frozen in the deep freeze, the ice cream becomes VERY hard. It must be thawed before dipping, and it still won’t have quite the original creaminess as when first made. But a sliced banana covers a multitude of sins.
Plain Ice Cream
2 cans FULL fat coconut milk
1-2 Tbsp vanilla
1/4-1/2 cup honey
Blend and freeze in ice cream maker.
It does taste a little of coconut. Again, a banana takes care of this nicely!
Need chocolate cake to go with this ice cream? The Best Almond Flour Chocolate Cake. MMMMM.
Enjoy what’s left of summer!
Terri
The HSD 