Quick'n'dirty coconut icecream

This has to be the quickest way to make ice-cream. It's kind of like cheating. And yes, it's not the best ice-cream in the world; but it got pretty good reviews from the people I fed it to. It's rich, so to my mind it wants to be garnished with tart fruit - I scattered raspberries and drizzled lime syrup, though my original plan had been pineapple.

Ever since my trip to Le Cercle (review) I've been fantasizing about the roasted pineapple I had there - wondering how I can recreate it. I tried a few different variations, which unfortunately resulted more in stubbornly burnt baking trays and too sugary syrups than ambrosiac chunks of idealised pineappliness. I was gearing up to try again, and I started thinking about ice-cream to go with it. No idea how I could tackle spiced toffee, so thoughts drifted to coconut. In fact originally I thought about malibu - last drunk by myself on the streets of small town England circa 1996, but retro is cool isn't it...


Then I found out Malibu is really expensive nowadays! Frugalness kicked in, and I invested in a box of creamed coconut instead.


There's various recipes on the internet for coconut ice-creams - I amalgamated ideas and came up with this:

- First, put 1/2 pint milk and 1/2 pint double cream in a pan and heat gently
- Add half a block of creamed coconut and 300g of sugar and stir until both are dissolved
- Chuck in a handful of desiccated coconut (optional) for texture, and mix in
- Let cool a bit, pour in a freezer-proof dish and pop in the freezer
- For the next three or four hours, get it out each hour to give it a good beat with a wooden spoon and bash out the ice crystals

No roast pineapple in the end, as my impatience to experiment with the coconut meant this was made before there was a pineapple in the house, but it was pretty good with raspberries and lime, and for the next few weeks with crumbles and chocolate puddings and just on its own.