Description

This dairy free Coconut Ice Cream is a bonus for people who can’t tolerate dairy. The combination of coconut ice cream topped with juicy mango and roasted, salted peanuts might just transport you to Thailand in one spoonful!

Homemade ice cream is fun and easy to make. Hand crank ice cream makers sell for under $100. I have had my Donvier ice cream maker for more than twenty years and it still works perfectly.

I made this Coconut Ice Cream as part of a Thai Gourmet Dinner Club menu. The search for the ingredients was definitely worth the effort, some of us actually consider it part of the challenge of participating in a Dinner Club. Here is a brief description of the ingredients.

Coconut Ice Cream by Ingredient

Coconut Water comes from the inside of a coconut and you have probably seen canned coconut water at the grocery store by now. Young coconuts have more water and less coconut meat compared to the more familiar brown-husked mature coconuts. Coconut water out of a young Thai coconut, is a refreshing and delicious beverage popular for its’ nutritional value. Both the whole coconuts and coconut water can be found in Asian markets. Canned coconut water is an acceptable substitute.

Coconut milk is made from the pulp of mature coconuts which is pressed to extract the thick milk. It is sold in cans labelled with the fat content the same way cow’s milk is. Choose full fat coconut milk with a fat content greater than 20% or about 30 grams of fat per cup. Light coconut milk is about a quarter of this and will not give the same delicious results. Unless you eat a steady diet of coconut milk I would not recommend using the light variety.

If you are curious about the different kinds of coconut milk read this blog post, coconut milk. If you have leftover coconut milk and want to make an easy dinner try this creamy Thai Yellow Chicken Curry.

Palm Sugar comes from the sap of various species of the palm tree and therefore has different names. Reading the ingredient list is the most reliable source for the contents. Palm sugar has a light molasses taste and is sold as light brown coloured, rock-like disks in clear packages. It is available at Asian supermarkets. To use it pound the disks into smaller pieces with a mallet or hammer. It can then be cut into smaller pieces with a knife or melted.

The Young Coconut Challenge

Let me know in the comments below if you braved the task of getting coconut water out of a young Thai coconut. I’ve used both but the canned coconut water is definitely not as much fun.

Thanks to Palin over at Hot Thai Kitchen for this recipe and her tips. I adjusted it based on the ingredients I bought and how it turned out in my kitchen.