Featured, Kitchen

Ice Cream & Mangoes

May 29, 2020

Obsessions and more obsessions and white chocolate ripples

Often when I share that I don’t really love eating mangoes, people gasp. I’m more than certain they are thinking, “how is it possible that this woman represents an entire mango brand,  leading its recipe development when she doesn’t like mangoes?”

In my mind I still feel like I am the best person for the job. I don’t love sitting around eating sweet ripe mangoes, but I love coming up with creative ways to incorporate them into recipes and enjoying them in various forms other than the pure sweet fruit. I love the flavor, texture and opportunity mangoes give to me. I am not needed in order to teach people how to eat a fresh mango. I’m far more useful in the instruction of how to add them to everyday cooking, and recipes, demonstrating their extraordinary versatility by incorporating them into just about anything.

Mangoes have become my thoughtful muse. Because I’m particular about eating them, I think long and hard about what to use them with and how to use them, what I consider to be the perfect recipe for mangoes requires a balance between careful consideration and dreamy abstraction. My background in food and recipe development coupled with the real time experience of actually selling the mangoes, wrapped up in a lifetime of global travels makes me a prime candidate for teaching others to create a mango obsession. I’m really good at coming up with new ideas on how to choose, store, cut and use them in tasty new and old ways.

This particular recipe was born out of an ice cream making obsession, which has been heightened by the COVID-19 stay-at-home life many of us have had to adopt. While some bake bread, I make ice cream. You can see some of my other recent ice cream recipes on My Herbal Roots.

The first ‘pandemic era’ ice cream recipe was Strawberry Rhubarb with White Chocolate Ripples. I made it with my niece and lockdown partner-in-crime, Kianna. It was an off-the-cuff idea that I wasn’t sure was going to turn out well. White chocolate isn’t the tastiest ingredient, and the idea of it rippling was more a theory than anything I had executed previously. Well, it turned out that the white chocolate rippling through the ice cream was a masterful idea. It not only made for a tasty and textural magic component of the ice cream but is an idea I’m still obsessed with and can’t seem to stop incorporating into my ice cream ideas.

For this particular recipe, I wanted to make a coconut ice cream but cream-based. There are not many that use dairy. Most just use coconut milk. I wanted the richness of the cream and still the front and center coconut flavor. The idea was to have a rich and creamy coconut ice cream and make a mango chili jam to swirl into it. The white chocolate ripples were a no brainer. It was a great idea, that turned out tasty. The mango and chili in the rich coconut ice cream was vibrant, a tinge spicy and tropical, while the white chocolate gave it a decadence and added texture I simply loved!

You will need an ice cream maker, but other than that, it’s easy to whip up.

Coconut Ice Cream White Chocolate & Mango Chili Jam Ripples

Makes about 2 pints

Ingredients

For the Mango Chili jam:
1 Ripe Tommy Atkins mango, chopped fine
1 red chili, chopped fine
Zest of 1 lime
Juice of 2 limes
½ cup sugar

For the ice cream base:
5 egg yolks
½ cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
1 small can coconut cream (5.4 fluid ounces)
½ teaspoon coconut extract (optional)
1 vanilla bean split
Pinch of salt

For the white chocolate ripples:
½ cup white chocolate chips, melted

Directions

For the mango jam:
Combine the mango, chili, lime zest and juice in heavy bottom saucepan and place on medium-high heat. Stir well, making sure to mix in all the sugar so it begins to dissolve. Cook stirring often for about 20 -25 minutes. Make sure to scrape the bottom of the pan often, to keep it from burning or sticking to the bottom. The jam should be thick and jammy and not slide off your spoon easily when finished. Remove from heat once done. Allow to cool and then refrigerate at least 2 hours before using in the ice cream.

For the ice cream base:
Mix up the egg yolks and sugar until it’s super creamy and well mixed.
In a heavy bottom pan, heat the milk, cream, and salt until just about boiling. Whisk in a little of the hot milk mixture to the eggs (to temper) – then a little more, then a little more. Next, add the egg mixture to the warm milk mixture, turn the burner to medium-low, and allow the mixture to thicken, stirring constantly about 2-3 minutes. It should get thick and coat the spoon (but honestly, I don’t know if that description helps enough. It’s more a feeling that it’s the right consistency than anything).
Then, strain it into a glass bowl (I think the glass cools it quicker). Put that bowl into an ice bath, stir a lot and let it cool as quickly as possible. Then, put that in the freezer for 20 minutes to get super cold. In the meantime, turn your ice cream maker on freeze so it gets cold.

To combine:
Put the cold ice cream base in the ice cream maker and turn the churn and freeze on. Let it do its thing for about 30 minutes. Then add a stream of melted white chocolate and turn it on freeze for another 15 minutes.
Then place that the mixture in a pre-chilled container. At this point, it’s still kind of like soft serve. Swirl in the jam, using a spoon to mix it around. Once swirled to your liking, place in the freezer to harden about 3 hours.

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