Blackberry Coconut Milk Ice Cream
Stop! Before you read any further, there is something you should know.
This is a VEGAN ice cream. But, please, don't be afraid.
We'll be gentle.
There's no soy 'cream' or egg replacers, just good natural ingredients.
I first became intrigued by the idea of coconut milk ice creams while watching the Top Chef Masters. In one competition the chefs were asked to cook a vegan meal and the chef who decided to make dessert bought a soy based ice cream. While this was just wrong on many levels (A. You can't win a competition by serving something you didn't even make! B. Haven't you ever watched an episode of Top Chef? Don't you know that people always try to make dessert and get sent home for it?) the judges suggested that in general a coconut milk based ice cream would have been a better choice.
It makes sense. The fats in coconut milk help give the ice cream the creamy texture we're used to and the coconut flavor complements many of my favorite ice cream flavors. In the case of blackberry ice cream, the coconut milk added an underlying tropical note.
Recipe:
3 cups unsweetened coconut milk
2 cups blackberries, fresh or frozen
2/3 cup sugar, preferably raw organic cane sugar
Combine one cup of the coconut milk with the blackberries in the bowl of a food processor and puree until smooth. I prefer to leave the seeds in, but you can strain the blackberry puree at this point if you wish.
Stir together the blackberry coconut milk mixture, the coconut milk sugar mixture and the remaining one cup of coconut milk. At this point, if you are using fresh blackberries, place your ice cream base in the refrigerator until well chilled and then freeze according to your ice cream maker's instructions. If you used frozen (unthawed) blackberries, you can go ahead and freeze the ice cream now.
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