Toasted Coconut Ice Cream

I feel like the last few batches of ice cream I’ve gone really heavy on the chocolate. Not that it’s a bad thing, but I needed a bit of a change. I have been toying with the idea of hazelnuts and came up with a potential combo for hazelnuts, cranberries & cherries. Unfortunately the local hazelnut market hasn’t been very good so I am going to shelve that one until a better crop comes along. In the meantime, I had a cake to make in the horizon and a surplus of egg yolks.

That never happens!

It usually evens out or I get an excess of whites (if it’s a custard-based filling) so to have a glut of fresh yolks on hand was quite a treat. (The cake in question? A very dense coconut cake with pineapple filling and seven-minute frosting tinted pink.) Even though I was just coming off a coconut heavy dessert I was still in a tropical mood. So I decided to go with a toasted coconut ice cream and finally make use of a jar of dulce de leche I got over the holidays. (By the way, quick plug for Cajeta from OMG Mexican Foods here in British Columbia! Get the rum version, it really is OMG good. It has this nice smoky flavor to it, I put it on my waffles…WITH strawberry sauce!!)

The toasted coconut ice cream is via the lovely David Lebovitz (The recipe I’ve linked to is for a Caramelized White Chocolate ice cream, but the base method is the same, minus the white chocolate). The method is so simple – toast the coconut and then steep it in cream! (well and then do the whole French-style custard, etc) I like to toast the coconut in the saucepan I will eventually use for the custard so I keep all those amazing oils. Keep an eye on it! It burns quickly. I would note to cooks to not be stingy with the salt. I’m starting to think about what flavors would work well to contrast with the coconut. Anyway, once you make your custard you do strain out the coconut so you do get a smooth ice cream. I then attempted to “swirl” the dulce de lech…with mixed results. The first batch worked better than the second – I kept an eye on the mixer and I added the dulce de leche too soon and it just wound up mixing into the ice cream. Still awesome, but that pint was a tad sweeter than the others, haha!

Even after all the ice cream I’ve made, it’s still one of my favourite things to photograph. Isn’t it beautiful? All the textures and shadows? It’s like…moody, haha.