Leftovers or.. Treasure troves?

I've been trying to conserve food in the best possible way as to not waste anything, so my fridge has turned into a ziplock haven. But some things don't ziplock too well. Like soy cream and condensed milk. So I decided to look in my cupboard and see what else I had left I could use with cream and milk. I found half a bar of chocolate and dried coconut. And thus my stracciatella coconut ice cream was born, in short: bounty dark chocolate ice cream: HEAVEN. 

The result was this, and it makes me SO happy! I adjusted the recipe to a perfect mix (to me)

200ml soy cream light

Vanilla bean

150 ml condensed milk

25grams dark chocolate

20 grams coconut

Heat the cream with the vanilla pod, bring to the boil and let simmer for five minutes. Turn off heat and let sit for an hour. Remove vanilla bean and scrape seeds and put them into the cream. Turn heat back on, add condensed milk, don't boil. Turn off heat. Let cool and transfer to a freezer proof container.

Place in freezer, let cool for 30 minutes then stir, place back in freezer for another 30 minutes, meanwhile melt chocolate and let cool till it's still liquid but not warm. Remove cream from freezer and while stirring drip in chocolate. Place container back in freezer for another 30 minutes. Remove from freezer and add coconut while stirring. Place back in freezer and remove+stir at four 15 minute intervals, after that leave to freeze. The result is truly divine!

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.

For as long as I can remember my dad made ice cream himself. From scratch and when I was a young kid, with no ice cream churner. And so, from a young age I have learned that making ice cream, really is very easy. All it needs is a boat load of love and some patience. I'm planning to share some of my favourites over the coming weeks, but lets start with the most basic of ice creams, vanilla.

This recipe comes from an old eighties cookbook, many times adjusted. It is incredibly low on sugar compared to the original and also less eggy. After all the cream and the flavour are the stars of the show.

Ingredients: 

500ml cream (or 250 cream/250 soy cream light)

1 fresh vanilla pod

2 egg yolks

50 grams of fine caster sugar

Put the cream in a pan with the lengthwise sliced open vanilla pod and gently heat over a medium fire. Bring to the boil and let simmer for five minutes. Turn off the heat and let the mixture sit for a few hours (preferably over night).

Remove the vanilla pod, scrape some seeds out and put them in the cream. Reheat your cream, but don't bring to the boil! Whisk loose the egg yolks and while stirring add three tablespoons of the warm cream to the eggs. Remove pan from heat and add egg mixture, keep stirring. Return pan to fire and gently stir it until mixture starts thickening a bit. Add the sugar and stir until desolved.

Let your mixture cool while stirring occassionally. Pour your mixture through a sieve into a freezer proof container (or your ice cream churner). Put the ice cream in your freezer and stir every half hour until it starts to freeze then four more times every fifteen minutes, then leave to freeze. 

You have just made vanilla ice cream congrats!!

You can also make cinnamon ice cream with this recipe, just replace the vanilla pod with two or three cinnamon sticks!

(photos to follow)

*title of this post blatantly copied from that wonderful Mars ice cream bar tv advert!