Over the long weekend, we picked up an ice-cream attachment for the KitchenAid mixer. We’d been toying with the idea of buying an ice-cream maker for a while now, I argued for getting an attachment, since my mixer sits on the counter already,  too heavy to move around. I wasn’t ready to commit to a proper ice-cream maker, the bigger machines which do not require pre-freezing of the bowl, and which are of course more expensive. There were some reviews of the KitchenAid attachment that didn’t seem that great, about the liquid inside leaking. But so far it’s been ok. We will see how it goes later in the year. Meanwhile, it was at a really good price at Target ($45) compared to list price which was about $71. So we went for it!

And after freezing the bowl for about 15 hours, we made our first vanilla ice-cream (recipe from The Perfect Scoop by David Leibovitz also available on his website) and it was so good! The real vanilla beans make a difference plus that custard was just lovely and silky and rich.

So far so good.

I wanted to also try a coconut ice-cream recipe. My in-laws are visiting from Singapore and they always buy this ice-cream from the Philippines when they’re here. There are some speciality Filipino grocery stores here that carry it, unlike in Singapore. But it is expensive!

I found a recipe that uses coconut milk and coconut cream (no egg yolk custard). And decided to try it. But it never churned up properly. Was it because there was no custard? Instead we froze it into popsicles, which were really delicious but also kinda icy. I decided that I had to look for a recipe which did use the egg custard and try that instead.

The recipe is below. I found that the coconut taste wasn’t very strong in the way I adapted it. I may experiment with substituting some of the heavy cream with coconut cream, although I’m unsure of how that would work, if it has enough fat in it to make a good ice-cream. Stay tuned for a future coconut ice-cream experiment!

 

(I adapted this recipe from David Leibovitz‘s Toasted Coconut Ice-cream from his book The Perfect Scoop. In his recipe, he doesn’t use coconut milk but regular milk which he infuses with  toasted shredded coconut.)  

 

1 cup (250ml) coconut milk

2 cups (500ml) heavy cream

50g gula Melaka (palm sugar)

100g brown sugar (or regular sugar – I only had brown sugar in my pantry)

Big pinch salt

5 egg yolks

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

 

Warm the coconut milk, 1 cup of heavy cream, palm sugar and brown sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan. Do not boil.

Pour the remaining one cup of cream into a large bowl and set a large strainer on top of the bowl. Also get a bigger bowl that the bowl of cream fits into, so you can create an ice bath.

In a medium bowl, beat the egg yolks together.

Now this part is important, don’t skip it! You need to temper the eggs, so pour the warmed milk and cream mixture into the egg yolks really slowly. In the original recipe, he says to pour it all in, but I don’t think you need to. Pour enough so that the eggs warm up and don’t become scrambled eggs when you pour it into the saucepan. Now scrape the warmed eggs into the saucepan (on medium heat) and keep stirring often. The mixture should thicken and coat the spatula. I run my finger down the spatula and if it leaves a distinct “trail” then it should be done.

Pour the custard through the strainer and stir into the cream. Add vanilla extract. Let cool in an ice bath for a bit. Then stick it in the fridge until it’s cold enough.

Then freeze the mixture in your ice-cream maker per your instructions. In my Kitchenaid ice-cream attachment, it took about 20 minutes to get churned and cold. It wasn’t however as ice-cream-like as the vanilla ice-cream I first made, the husband said I seemed to have made soft-serve ice-cream.

But once we stuck it in the freezer for a few hours, the texture was just nice.

 

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