Coconut Cookie Ice Cream
Using up some leftovers
The cookies in the photo above, which I purchased a few weeks ago as a car snack for before piano lessons, were not a hit with my kids. I found them to be very tasty—not surprising given that I generally enjoy all of the offerings from the Tate’s Bake Shop brand. But my kids? They just didn’t care for them. Which explains why a sleeve of those cookies was still sitting on the shelf of our pantry, unopened, earlier this week.
Watching those cookies glumly languish on the shelf got me to thinking that maybe, just maybe, I could create a kind of coconut version of the Peanut Butter Pie ice cream I made earlier this month—and thoroughly enjoyed.1 I thought to myself, “I could make a Coconut Cream Pie ice cream!”
Now that I’m on the other side of having made it, Coconut Cookie feels like a more appropriate name for what ultimately ended up as this week’s creation. Here’s how it all went down:
The ingredient ratio I used was based off this recipe I found on the interwebs. I modified it slightly to 2 cups heavy cream, 1 can of coconut milk, scant 1 cup of sugar, 2 tablespoons of corn syrup, 1/4 cup of shredded coconut, and 1/4 tsp of guar gum.
Making the base only required two main steps. First, you combine all of the ingredient—except the cookies—in a pot and whisk them all together over medium heat.
Once that’s done, you immersion blend the mixture to homogenize it, And then you’re done. All that’s left to do is to chill the mixture in the fridge prior to churning.
I only let it cool for about two-ish hours before starting the churn (the luxury of having an ice cream machine with a compressor).
Here was my set up as the churn got underway:
Here’s the video of it churning:
And here’s a bonus video of the mix-ins getting folded in!
And finally, here it is all scooped up:
Looks wise, I think it came out pretty good, with the right proportion of mix-ins to the base. But honestly, I didn’t love either the taste or the texture. It tasted okay—fine even—but not great. It had a strong coconut flavor, but not nearly as good as Mitchell’s Macapuno or similar coconut ice creams I’ve had in the past. I think the coconut milk might not be the right ingredient. I wonder if steeping milk and cream with toasted coconut might yield a better flavor. Or (sadly) coconut extract.
The coconut milk also led to problems with the texture. I like using coconut milk as a base for ice cream, but here, the texture that resulted was slightly chewy/gummy. I enjoyed the shredded coconut bits and the coconut cookie. But the texture of the cream base was not as smooth and light as I would have wanted it to be.
Overall, I would say the idea/concept here is a good one; it’s just a matter of ingredients and how the base is constructed. Lebovitz has a recipe for Toasted Coconut ice cream that seems worth trying in the future. Adding some Tate’s Coconut Crisp cookies to that might result in the ice cream I was searching for this week.
That’s it for this installment. TOIC entries are due in one week! I’ll have an update after the deadline passes. Make sure you send me your family’s choice!
By the way, with the benefit of a few weeks hindsight, I think I’m ready to definitively say that the Peanut Butter Pie ice cream might be the single best ice cream I’ve ever made. I could not stop eating it.