Lime & Coconut Ice cream

Thursday, so it's ice cream making day again! One of my favourite days of the week - at least, when I have a recipe in my head that I've been wanting to make for a while.

I devised this one last week, at the same time as my chocolate coconut ice cream. Mum had been looking for recipes online using coconut and found a Lime Coconut one. I got very excited, as it is one of my favourite cake flavours, but it was one of those recipes that is 'some lime, some coconut, some vanilla ice cream'. And when it comes to ice cream, that is not how I work. I want to make them from the base up. But I had a big hurdle to get over - I use 600mls of cream, and if I add lime juice to that, it is very likely to curdle. And I don't want curdled ice cream. I decided, in the end, to ignore lime juice and just use the rind. I considered making a sorbet, instead of ice cream, but I wasn't really sure how it would go with shredded coconut. Plus, even though I like sorbet (especially in the middle of summer), I love ice cream.

So in the end, I devised the following recipe, and it worked quite well. The limes I used were quite small - as they tend to be here - about 5cm (2inches) in diameter. I *think* I've seen them bigger overseas, but I could have been confusing that. So if 5cm is what you have over there, you're fine.

Rind of two limes.
1/2 cup shredded coconut
395g tin condensed milk
600ml thickened cream.

I grated the rind off the limes, and mixed it with the coconut and left in a sealed container overnight. I was hoping to infuse the coconut slightly with the taste. No idea whether it worked, but the container smelt good in the morning. In the morning, I mixed the cream and condensed milk in a bowl, and then added the coconut/lime rind, and mixed well. I let it chill in the fridge for 30-45minutes, and then just poured it into my ice cream maker. I was a bit concerned at first that it had curdled, but I think that was just coconut.

And the result was a nice, creamy, lime flavoured icecream. With coconut. It was really quite good - though right now, I am feeling extremely full. The lime was just right (for me, anyway), not too overpowering, but strong enough to be noticeable.

Now, I just have to figure out a flavour for next week...