Coconut Ice Cream

Need help developing a great recipe for coconut milk ice cream. Needs to be paleo or at least primal. Eggs are okay, but no guar gum etc. The probelem I have been having is that it is just too hard once frozen. Not pliable at all. Any suggestions? I have tried just the fat from canned coconut milk. Have tried eggs, egg yolks and different sugars, sweeteners from agave to maple syrup....Help!!

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Mauro_Daniel_Rossi_73211

Dan_5757

Thank you. I was thinking of approaching the recipe as a Sabayon...I will give that a try and post the results.

Matt_67991

Maybe gelatin? Gelatin is great for softening sorbets. It was in a bunch of Momofuku Milk Bar recipes. I think David Leibovitz recommends a teaspoon or two of knox per liter of base? Something like that.

Joel_Bernstein_27649

I just consulted the Ben & Jerry's cookbook, which says:

1 can (15 oz) coconut cream

2 eggs

2 cups heavy cream

3/4 cup sugar

1 cup milk

What kind of ice cream maker are you using? Are you having good luck with other flavors?

Brandon_Byrd_40557

@Joel: I believe the OP's goal is to make a dairy free coconut ice cream (and probably one free of white sugar as well). The big challenge isn't so much moving from milk and cream to coconut milk (because it's relatively easy to get similar fat and water levels) but also trying to eliminate sugar without compromising texture. Along with fat, sucrose helps to keep ice cream products soft (or softer) once frozen. You can move away from sugar to get similar levels of sweetness, but the texture will suffer unless you add something that corrects for this. That's one of the reasons the big coconut ice cream guys (e.g. So Delicious, Coconut Bliss) add guar and/or carob bean gum to their products.

I'm curious how @Mauro's suggestion of adding a small amount of alcohol to the mixture would work in practice. Sounds like an idea worth trying.

Brandon_Byrd_40557

There was a good discussion on coconut milk ice cream a few weeks ago on Cooking Issues. Here's a link to the episode, and the discussion starts at around 9:30 into the podcast.

sebastian_palmigiani_21610

i use xylitol on a regular basis instead of sugar with a 1 to 1 substitute. works great. you can also use erythritol which is about 70% as sweet as sugar. both these sugars have a very low glycemic index. i use xylitol in both gelato and sorbetto. i like to have my sweets without having a blood sugar spike.

i have made coconut only gelato and it turned out great. you can use coconut milk and coconut cream instead of milk and heavy cream.

i have been using a refractometer to help measure the % of sugar in the solution. i usually shoot for around 25% solution.

Mauro_Daniel_Rossi_73211