Last month I picked up an ice cream maker for dirt cheap. After reading recipes upon recipes and various techniques, I finally gave the machine a go and made toasted coconut ice cream I added some dark chocolate chunks, 'cause why not. Two of my favourite things made into sweet and creamy frozen yumminess. What's not to love?
There's nothing really complicated about make ice cream; at least the way I do it...ha! I opted for the cooked custard method which is made with egg yolks. I basically threw all the ingredients (save for the chocolate) into a blender, cooked it until the coated the back of a wooden spoon, strained it, chilled it over night along with the ice cream bucket and turned the machine on.
Within twenty five minutes, the liquid mixture had turned ice cold, had expanded due to the incorporation of air and had the most smooth and velvety texture. Success! Ice Cream!
When the ice cream finishes churning in the machine, it comes out in a very soft serve like state. It's perfectly delicious the way it is, but I wanted it in a more solid state so I opted to re-home it in a glass container and allow it to freeze a little more. The end result was a firm ice cream perfect for scooping.
The ice cream tasted just like it should. Coconut-y with caramel notes due to the infusion of toasted coconut, sweet, very faintly of vanilla and just a touch bitter from the 80% cocoa chocolate chunks.
Like most homemade ice cream, it's best served within a couple of days and because the freezer at home is usually colder than the ones inside shops. Since the product contains less air and is more concentrated/dense (think gelato), the ice cream can get fairly solid when stored.
To remedy this problem, one could either lower their freezer temperature or simply take the container out of the freezer and into the fridge fifteen minutes before serving!
I used Serious Eat's Almond Joy Ice Cream recipe and instructions as a guideline and adapted it from there. I liked this technique because it was simple, straight forward and no need for tempering eggs!
