Coconut Milk Vanilla Ice Cream with Homemade Magic Shell Topping

Once coconut milk was back on the menu, I dug out my old coconut recipes to see what I could do, and found our “favorite ice cream on earth recipe” made completely from coconut milk!

This recipe is basically an internet staple; I’ve seen it in a million different places (okay, exaggeration, but I’ve seen it on at least twenty different blogs!) but it’s a tried and true goodie that has to be shared!

Simply take a whole can of coconut milk (full fat kind) and dump it in a bowl.  Add sweetener of choice and vanilla, whisk it to death, and throw it in the fridge to cool.  Meanwhile, get out an ice cream maker and get it set up.

When the ingredients are nicely chilled, toss it into the ice cream maker and let ‘er rip!

What comes out is delicious, creamy goodness in a bowl!

If you want, you can easily adapt this to be chocolate flavored by reducing the vanilla and adding cocoa powder.  Adding frozen fruit is always a good tweak, too.  Really, as with “normal”, dairy-based ice creams, you can get very creative with your alterations of this recipe!

So as I made this for Jed the other night I remembered seeing a recipe for homemade magic shell somewhere.  I dug through my recipes and finally found it – and it called for melting chocolate chips!  Unfortunately, at that time I hadn’t found any chocolate chips that were safe for Jed’s Fructose Malabsorption!  Ugh! (I will have to try this with our new chocolate recipe next time.)

But then I thought, “How hard can it be, right?” So I messed around and came up with a magic shell recipe that uses cocoa powder instead!

It’s simple: put coconut oil, cocoa powder, and maple syrup in the top part of a double boiler.

Turn the heat on and start stirring.  It’ll go from this:

To this…

To this…

Don’t worry about the bits still stuck to the spoon – the sauce itself was nice and smooth!

Then you let it cool to room temperature and drizzle it on your ice cream.  It works JUST like that horrible but delicious stuff from a bottle that I lived on back in the early ’90’s!

This picture doesn’t do it justice, but that’s totally my fault.  I didn’t start making the magic shell until the ice cream was ready to eat, so I didn’t let the sauce cool completely before drizzling it over the bowl.  (Impatience is not good in the kitchen!) It sort of melted the ice cream a bit as I poured it on before the cold of the ice cream managed to work its ‘magic’ on the shell coating.

Trust me, though, it works!  Jed loved it, and Darrel (who remembers the ‘real’ fake magic shell) said it was fabulous!

So there’s a simple dessert to make that takes very little effort and is really yummy.  Not quite  as healthy as Banana Ice Cream, but not bad…not bad at all!

__________

COCONUT MILK ICE CREAM

– 1 can full fat coconut milk
– 1/3 cup sweetener (honey or maple syrup – we used maple)
For vanilla:
– 2-3 T. vanilla extract
For chocolate:
– 1-2 tsp. vanilla extract
– 1/4-1/3 cup cocoa powder (to taste)

1. Mix all ingredients in a bowl and whisk together completely.  Chill in the fridge for 15-30  minutes.
2. If you have an ice cream maker, set it up.  Pour the chilled ingredients in the ice cream maker and turn it on.  After about 20 minutes, your ice cream is ready!
3. If you don’t have an ice cream maker, pour your ingredients in a Ziploc freezer bag.  Throw it in the freezer.  Every five minutes or so, take the bag out and mush it around a bit.  Put it back in the freezer and repeat until the cream has formed.
4. Enjoy!

HOMEMADE MAGIC SHELL

– 1/2 cup coconut oil
– 1/4 cup cocoa powder
– 1/8 cup maple syrup (or honey)

1. Put all ingredients in the top of a double boiler.
2. Stir as it melts until it is all blended together.
3. Let cool to room temperature.
4. Drizzle over your ice cream.
5. Leftovers can be stored in a jar in the fridge; will need to be warmed to re-use.
6. Enjoy!

__________

How do you tweak your coconut milk ice cream?

__________

This post shared with:

Real Food Wednesdays

Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways