Homemade Coconut Ice Cream

I have to admit that, from all my research, I had a thousand tips and ingredients and such floating around in my head when we set up to make our first batch of homemade ice cream yesterday.

The machine we bought was a Cuisinart ICE-21 Frozen Yogurt, Ice Cream & Sorbet Maker. It's available on Amazon, but we got ours from Bed Bath & Beyond because we wanted it N.O.W. It ended up being about the same price after the 20% coupon that I always keep stashed in the glove compartment.

My husband really loved the coconut taste of the So Delicious Ice Cream we had gotten (before we realized it was sweetened with Agave Nectar), so he was all for making Coconut Ice Cream first time on our own. I knew I had seen a perfect Belly Good recipe online somewhere but I could not find it again. I settled on one from a Paleo diet website, but that one called for six tablespoons of vanilla extract. Our vanilla's left over from the days before the diet so it's not sugar free, so I only used one tablespoon. Thank goodness! First, the flavor of the vanilla was so overpowering we had to counteract it with coconut flavoring (SF) even though we had real coconut milk and coconut shavings in there! Second, I think the alcohols in the flavoring kept the ice cream from setting up as hard as it would have if the vanilla had been omitted. Next time we make coconut we will skip the vanilla (and we'll pick up some vanilla beans for when we do want to use it).

If you do get one of these, you'll have to plan in advance as the barrel needs to be stored in the freezer until the gel inside freezes solid, so just store it in the freezer if you can. Either way I'd let it stay there overnight before making ice cream in it.

I didn't follow the recipe exactly, as the one I found called for different things than we'd collected. So what I essentially did was this:

1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp coconut flavoring
2 eggs
1 can (13.5oz) coconut milk (lite)
1/8 cup of light cream (I just poured the rest of what was in the container)
1/3 cup of heavy cream
1/4 cup xylitol (granulated)
pinch of stevia extract

I double-boiled everything (except the coconut shreds) to dissolve the xylitol and whisked the eggs in. Then cooled it in the fridge for about... maybe 4.5 hours. Going off of the 20 minute running time, we added in the coconut shreds at about 16 minutes in. Then when it started to set up to where we could catch some on a spatula we taste-tested and decided on adding the extra coconut flavoring. It didn't take much to counteract the vanilla, thankfully, but I still think it would have set up faster if we hadn't used alcohol-based flavors.

We scooped our finished ice cream out after about 24 minutes, and stuck it in the freezer to set up just a bit more. About ten minutes later we each grabbed a spoon and dug in. No formality - all the bowls were in the dishwasher! The flavor was nice and light, but definitely coconut. I think the coconut milk would work for many different ice cream bases, though I haven't found a 0/0 coconut milk yet, so we could just use cream for the same measurements until we do.

We each ate about 2/3 cup, which added up to 2/1 by this recipe. We've got more to try tonight to see what happens when it's in the freezer for a while after making it. I heard xanthan gum or glycerin can help make it more scoopable after hard freezing, but I didn't see enough proof positive evidence to make it worth the $10 for each of those ingredients! Not to mention at least the glycerin is added carbs.

Clean up was easy and I'd call the ice cream maker a hit at our house! Next up is a Chocolate Frappucino ice cream with dark chocolate chips!

As for the rest of the day, we each had a bowl of F-Factor Skinny n' Fruit Cereal for breakfast, with UAM, for a count of 4/2 with 18 grams of Fiber!
Snack of Jalepeño string cheese before we went grocery shopping (0/0)
Lunch was some Shrimp Poppers which were 0/1
Dinner was Pan seared cod with lemon pepper spice, over 1/4c brown rice (cooked measurement) and broccoli tops for 1/1
And then the Ice Cream for 2/1
Total for Sunday: 7/5

Today I had the F-Factor cereal for breakfast: 4/2
Lunch will be egg salad and baby spinach on a Joseph's pita with pirate's booty: 0/2
Afternoon snack of string cheese: 0/0
Dinner will be a protein shake before class: 0/0
and after class I will probably have more ice cream and some coffee!: 2/1