Vegan cinnamon and coconut ice cream (with homemade coconut milk!)

Vegan coconut cinnamon ice cream

Have you ever cracked open a coconut?  I hadn’t until today.  Coconuts were filed in my mind alongside pineapples in the “too tricky to open at home” category.  But, the urge struck to buy a coconut last week so into the cart it went.  And sat at home for days.  What to do with it?  And moreover, how do I open this thing?  What was I thinking?

A few YouTube videos later, I was feeling pretty confident that I could totally crack open a coconut.  In fact, it seemed so easy I started feeling guilty for not trying it sooner.  This tutorial by Jenny over on Nourished Kitchen was particularly inspiring.  Jenny also lists about 80 or so (I kid) reasons why making coconut milk from scratch is all around better than canned.

Here’s how I cracked it open (I have an added step that makes getting the meat out much easier):

I held the coconut in my left hand and tapped around the circumference with a small hammer.  I kept tap tap tapping until the shell cracked.  I opened the coconut over a bowl and saved the coconut water.  Now, you should be left with two halves.  Turn on your oven and heat it up to about 350 degrees.  Toss the halves on a cookie sheet and bake for about 10 minutes.  Doing this, loosens the husk from the coconut meat.  It makes getting the meat out a breeze.  Then, I used a vegetable peeler to finish the job of peeling the brown skin off the meat.  Voila, coconut meat.

Coconut inspector.

Alden enjoyed tapping the coconut with the hammer. The CHEO part of my brain said giving him a hammer was a bad idea, but my Saturday brain said “ok.”

Toss meat and hot water in blender

The meat got tossed into the blender along with about 1 1/2 to 2 cups of hot water.

Milk strained from coconut meat shreds

Using cheesecloth or muslin, strain the mixture into a bowl.  Less water will make your milk “creamier”.  Tada, you now have coconut milk.

Coconut milk and coconut shreds ready to be dehydrated

I made about 1 1/2 cups of coconut milk out of one coconut.  With the remaining shredded meat, I tossed it into the dehydrator on the fruit roll-up tray and dried it out.  This resulted in a generous one cup of dessicated coconut.

With my coconut milk, I whipped up a batch of cinnamon ice cream, a variation on a couple of recipes from the Vegan Scoop.  It was easily the best ice cream I’ve ever made at home.

Sunday update: I checked my grocery bill. The coconut cost $1.79, cheap! You can’t even buy a can of coconut milk at Loblaws for that amount. It makes the ice cream even sweeter now.

Tuesday update: It’s even better in a cone.

Yay! Ice Cream!