Chocolate and Coconut Ice Cream

Though our chocolate gelato recipe produces an incredible result, it’s an awful lot of work and takes a long time to prepare and chill before you can freeze it. I eventually decided that there is no reason why the Russell Recipe should not produce a quality chocolate ice cream.

I can’t remember the exact occasion or reason, but someone suggested coconut and chocolate and I decided to combine them. I’ve made coconut ice cream quite a few times, by simply adding a tin of coconut milk to the Russell Recipe. It works great.

So for the chocolate & coconut recipe I applied my experience from making the gelato to a normal ice cream. The recipe (for a half-gallon freezer):

• 1 egg + 1 egg yolk
• 1 cup (225g) caster sugar
• about 1 cup of cocoa powder
• 100g (3.5oz) dark chocolate (melted)
• 2 cups (473ml) double cream
• 1 can of coconut milk
• enough whole milk to top up the mix

As usual, beat the eggs with the sugar until thick. Before adding any other liquids, stir the cocoa powder into the eggs and sugar and mix until all the cocoa powder is moist. Add the melted chocolate and stir until smooth. Now mix in the cream and the coconut milk. Finally stir in enough milk to reach the appropriate quantity for the freezer. Then crank!

While the chocolate flavour is not as intense as our chocolate gelato, the chocolate and coconut combination is delicious and the texture is near-perfect. I’m sure you can leave out the coconut milk and make a great plain chocolate ice cream, but I now make choco-coco more often than chocolate gelato.

The Russell Recipe wins again, proving its unbeatable versatility!