Coconut Ice Cream with Peanut Butter and Dark Chocolate

When I finally took my stuff out of storage a few months ago, I was really excited to be reunited with some fun kitchen gadgets and at long last have the opportunity to DIY a few things I spend a good deal of money on. Two of the things I love most making at home are Kombucha and Ice Cream. Kombucha is so easy to make when you have a little bit of space and patience and I can make a gallon for less than the cost of one store bought bottle. I bottled my first batch today and look forward to starting my second (double) batch tomorrow. Ice Cream, particularly non-dairy/non-soy, is a bit more pricey in the store as well and I buy at least one pint of Coconut Bliss a week, so making it at home definitely helps to reduce cost. Plus, it is fun and delicious. I love freshly churned ice cream that has never seen the freezer.

Needlesstosay, I was stoked to get my ice cream maker out of storage along with my other belongings. After having some homemade lemon ice cream at a friends house a month or so ago, I was reminded of my own ice cream maker that I had unpacked in haste and promptly neglected. I decided I would go home and try to recreate my beloved Coconut Bliss ice cream and tailor it to my desired flavor profile. I wanted plain vanilla ice cream with peanut butter and dark chocolate swirls. While Coconut Bliss has a Chocolate Peanut Butter variety, I don’t like chocolate ice cream (which is what that is).

My plans to make ice cream were quickly thwarted when I realized that the freezer bowls necessary for making the ice cream were lost when I moved out of my previous apartment. Thankfully, Maddy who had made the delicious lemon ice cream a few weeks earlier, lent me one of her two bowls and I back in business.

The first batch I did a combination of Organic Coconut Milk, vanilla agave and a bit of guar gum. Straight out of the machine it was tasty. I mixed in some peanut butter chips and dark chocolate chips but their flavors failed to pop. The ice cream itself was tasty but when frozen overnight became a bit icy.

The second go created a winner. Start out with two cans of Organic Coconut Milk (Thai Kitchen variety- full fat!), added 8 tbsps of regular agave and 1 tbsp of good brandy. Why brandy? Well I was going to use vanilla bean but somewhere between the bulk spice section and check out it got lost and didn’t make it home with me (thankfully it also didn’t make it on the bill either). The Baker suggested a splash of brandy would do the trick for the flavor I was looking for. And it really did. For the cost of a splash of brandy, it made the batch much more reasonable in price considering vanilla beans cost about $3.40 a piece!

While the ice cream churned away, we melted over low heat a handful of organic dark chocolate chips, stirring constantly. Just about when the ice cream was done we slowly drizzled it down into the still churning ice cream. It pretty much immediately froze in thin crisp flakes which was exactly what we wanted. We then drizzled peanut butter in the same manner. Flipped off the machine, served ourselves bowls of soft pillowy coconut dark chocolate peanut butter ice cream. It was out of sight.

It cannot be forgotten than coconut milk and dark chocolate have some great health benefits, so while this dessert is indulgent, it is not simply a loaded sugar bomb. We may have earned a heartier helping by running 30 miles that day, but I’d readily eat this ice cream guilt free on a rest day too. I also like the fact that it had so few ingredients and that it had neither dairy or soy. The total cost of the batch was less than $6.00 and produced about 2.5 pints worth of coconut ice cream.

It is easy to forget in our fast paced lives just how easy (and money saving) it can be to make our favorite things at home. I look forward to all sorts of kitchen adventures coming soon. But first, more ice cream flavors….

Big bowl of heaven