CSA week 15 - Grapefruit-coconut milk ice cream

And here we go. A pretty simple recipe this time around as all the citrus ice cream recipes I found were very straightforward and I decided to go with the suggestion. You wouldn't want to muddy the bright clean flavor of grapefruit with custard or cream cheese anyway.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup brown sugar
zest of 1 grapefruit
3 dashes cinnamon
2 dashes allspice
1 dash ginger
1 pinch salt
Process in food processor until fine-grained and uniform.
Then add
1/2 cup grapefruit supremes and juice
a few drops vanilla.
Blend until the sugar is well dissolved, add a little more grapefruit pulp for texture and chill.
I probably should have gotten a picture of this. Sorry.

Just before churning, mix with:
1 cup thick coconut milk
1 cup heavy cream
No reason to risk curdling by leaving the citrus with the dairy any longer than necessary.

I was afraid that without the custard or cornstarch this would freeze up solid, but it churned up nice and light without any problem.


The texture's quite good considering. It's smooth and creamy, but a little light as something more than half fruit products ought to be. The flavor, well, imagine taking a scoop of lightly flavored, slightly spicy coconut ice cream, and eating it with some grapefruit. The two components don't mesh; they're both just there. A bit of a disappointment there, but it's nothing you'd turn your nose up at unless you really hated grapefruit. Both elements are understated so it's easy eating but nothing really pops. That's not entirely a bad thing considering what you get when grapefruit pops.

But you know what would have really worked? If I had used lime instead, boosted the coconut flavor a bit and maybe included a little kaffir lime leaf as an exotic touch. Or if you want a crowd-pleaser, use key limes, replace the coconut milk with sweetened condensed milk and add crumbled pie crust.