Toasted Coconut Ice Cream

Back to making ice cream. This time, toasted coconut. Again, from the Perfect Scoop.

Okay – the recipe…
1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
2.5 cups whole milk (original recipe called for 1 cup whole milk)
1/2 cup heavy cream (original recipe called for 2 cups cream)
dash of salt
1 vanilla bean
2/3 cups sugar (original recipe called for 3/4 cups sugar)
5 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon rum or vanilla

I think I’m almost at the point where I could make a basic custard for ice cream in my sleep.

Now with this one we have some pre-steps. Preheat the oven to 350. Spread the coconut out on a jelly roll pan and toast in the oven for 5 – 8 minutes, stirring every couple of minutes, until golden brown. The first time I made this ice cream, not realizing that you strain the coconut out later, I didn’t toast the coconut (b/c Chris doesn’t like toasted coconut), and I couldn’t find unsweetened, so I used sweetened. I did strain the coconut as I was supposed to but Chris still remarks that he liked the bits of sweetened coconut that escaped the strainer and made it into the ice cream.

Anyway …

In a medium pot, warm 1 3/4 cups of milk, 1/4 cup cream, sugar, salt and toasted coconut. Split the vanilla bean and add the little seeds to the milk mixture and the bean, then cover and let steep off the heat for 1 hour.

In a medium bowl, whisk the 5 egg yolks.

In another bowl, put remaining milk (3/4 cup) and cream (1/4 cup) and put a sieve over it.

Strain out the coconut and vanilla bean from the milk mixture, using a sieve, and rewarm it.

Slowly, add the rewarmed milk to the egg mixture, whisking the entire time. Return the milk-egg mixture to the pot, and rewarm, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon or heat proof spatula until mixture thickens (coating the back of the spoon/spatula – if you can trail a finger across it and leave a path, it’s done). Add this custard to the bowl with the milk/cream and stir in the rum or vanilla (I once used coconut extract instead – not bad).

Put in ice bath and when it’s cool, stick it in the fridge to cool overnight. Churn it according to your ice cream machine’s directions.

Of course, I forgot to take a picture last night. Oh well.