Bountilicious Chocolate & Coconut Dairy Free Ice Cream

61 comments

Many people assume dairy free also means egg free – a hangover, perhaps, from when the dairy aisle of grocery stores sold not only milk products but eggs too. As far as I’m concerned dairy means milk, cream, butter, buttermilk, yoghurt and cheese but I made this ice cream dairy and egg free so it’s more versatile when catering to Free From dietary needs.

Coconut milk is an great choice for dairy free ice creams because of its high fat content and silky-smooth texture. Inspired by the famous chocolate bar, I went for a chocolate and coconut milk ice cream base, using unrefined caster sugar to sweeten. Do use unsweetened cocoa or dark chocolate for this recipe, as milk chocolate and hot chocolate powders contain milk powder.

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The finished result isn’t quite as rich and creamy as a dairy cream or custard base but it’s still pretty good and I like that the flavour of the coconut milk is quite subtle – almost lost against the chocolate, unless you boost it deliberately.

If you’d like a more obvious coconut flavour – as I did given my chocolate coconut bar inspiration – a slug of malibu does the trick and has the added bonus of making your finished ice cream a little softer and easier scoop.

If you want to make dairy free chocolate ice cream without a pronounced coconut flavour, use a slug of white rum instead. You can, of course, omit alcohol entirely, but this ice cream sets pretty hard even with alcohol added, so you’ll need to leave it out of the freezer for a while before attempting to scoop it.

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Bountilicious Chocolate & Coconut Dairy Free Ice Cream Recipe

Ingredients

  • 400 ml full fat coconut milk
  • 50 g unsweetened cocoa *
  • 50 g sugar , plus extra to taste
  • 2 tbsp Malibu coconut rum ~

Notes

* If you can’t find unsweetened cocoa, use same weight of good quality dark chocolate (with no milk content) and break into pieces or grate before use. A power blender like mine (see sidebar) has the power to pulverise chocolate into a powder but if you have a regular blender, grate before use.
~ Malibu adds a punch of coconut flavour. For a rum and chocolate ice cream, switch malibu for white rum.

Instructions

  • Place all ingredients in a blender and blitz until completely smooth; taste to check there is no remaining texture of sugar granules.
  • Do a taste check and add more sugar if you prefer a sweeter flavour.
  • If the blending has warmed the mixture, set aside to cool.
  • Churn in an ice cream machine, according to instructions.
  • Serve immediately or freeze to firm the texture further.

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61 Comments to "Bountilicious Chocolate & Coconut Dairy Free Ice Cream"

  1. Margot⚓Coffee & Vanilla

    Kavey, there is nothing better than some rum in ice cream 😉

    My husband and I we often pour spoon or two of spice rum over vanilla ice cream and we love coconut and chocolate so this is perfect recipe… thanks for sharing.

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    I often throw in some alcohol for the softening, though I’d say this base needs more than a regular custard base. Rum and chocolate always so good together!

    Reply
  2. kaveyeats

    It’s a good one to have in the repertoire I think — I’m going to try ice lollies this way too.

    Reply
  3. Jeanne Horak-Druiff

    Clever, clever! The flavours in here sound so good… How funny that people assume that eggs are “dairy” – which part of the cow do they think the eggs come from?! ;o)

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    It’s bizarre. I’ve seen some heated exchanges on other blogs about it. I think they must fundamentally not understand the meaning of the word dairy.

    Reply
  5. kellie@foodtoglow

    Very easy. Very swoon-worthy. I’m not too much into creamy, custard-based ice cream (I know! What’s wrong with me!), so this sounds a perfect ice cream recipe for my palate. Thanks for sharing this one. A keeper. 🙂

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    Oh interesting, definitely worth giving the coconut milk base a go then, Kellie. I wanted to try it with the fresh coconut milk I came across last year, but our local health store don’t stock it – when I mentioned we’d bought it from them before, they said it was a mistake and only larger branches are meant to sell it, so they sold that one batch off and that’s that. Boo!

    Reply
  6. kaveyeats

    Perfect! It’s a good base, not as coconutty as you’d expect, unless you add the malibu!!

    Reply
  7. laura

    Yum! I had never thought of using coconut milk for ice cream – it’s happening soon for certain! Most probably with some sneaky Malibu! 😉

    Reply
  8. kaveyeats

    Oh I had no idea, I know so little about the food of Sierra Leone. Thanks Bintu!

    Reply
  9. Jen

    If it comes from a cow it’s dairy, not sure where the egg confusion comes in but it’s clearly got stuck somewhere.

    Loving the sound of a chocolate coconut milk ice cream especially with a generous splash of malibu, a grown up frozen bounty bar 🙂

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    Purely from commonly being sold together in grocery stores, I think. So annoying!
    Definitely grown up, Jen!

    Reply
  10. kaveyeats

    Emma, I found that this base makes for a pretty hard ice cream, even with the alcohol so my worry would be that it would create an utterly solid block if not churned before freezing further.

    If you aren’t restricted to diary free, the best no-churn recipe for soft and delicious ice cream is the condensed milk and double cream base, which I’ve used many times, including in this easy yuzu ice cream: http://www.kaveyeats.com/2014/06/quick-easy-yuzu-ice-cream.html

    Reply
  12. kaveyeats

    Ah I hope you both enjoy! It’s a pretty good substitute for dairy ice cream, in my opinion!

    Reply
  15. Aly

    Oh thank you! My son has an egg allergy and I’m dairy free in order to lose weight.I’ll share this with the Veganuary FB group.

    Reply
  27. nazima

    love the idea of coconut milk ice creams. Now that the sun is starting to come out more often, I must get my ice cream maker back in action and try this idea. Your ice cream sounds delicious (and looks fab too!)

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    Yes, definitely time to get the ice cream maker out. I’m trying to persuade people that ice cream is a great dessert in winter too, when you’re cosy inside in the warmth, but spring and summer is definitely time!

    Reply
  30. kaveyeats

    I’d not tried it before, with the exceptions of sorbets which are by their nature all dairy free.

    Reply
  31. Monica

    I’m still getting the hang of dairy free ice cream. But I’m willing to try again. Maybe it’s the rum I’ve been missing all this time. 😉

    Reply

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