Coconut Chai Ice Cream

I have been trying to convince Dan that we need an ice cream maker for months. It came up every time I found a great ice cream or frozen yogurt recipe. It came up whenever we thought about having ice cream for dessert but didn’t want to spend the money. It came up when our friends made currant sorbet and wine slushies.

Truth be told, I think Dan was getting a little sick of the let’s get an ice cream maker!” line.
But the final straw came three weeks ago at Wegman’s. We pushed our cart of onions, garlic, pasta and yogurt down the frozen foods aisle, searching for something to satisfy our ice cream craving. Carton after carton of ice cream was pulled out of the freezer, examined, and returned. Why? Because every single one had corn syrup as one of the first four ingredients.

It didn’t matter whether it was ice cream or frozen yogurt, low-fat or full-fat ice cream. Every single brand and every single flavor had corn syrup as a main ingredient. I refused to buy anything that had such an unnessary, over-processed ingredient, and we left the grocery store without any frozen treats.

As luck would have it, my friend Megan texted me the very next day: Do you want an ice cream maker?” She had gotten the KitchenAid ice cream attachment, and was looking to get rid of her freestanding Cuisinart machine. I squealed a little, and responded with a YES. I’ve been trying to convince Dan to get one for months!”
I broke it out and made two types of ice cream this weekend: peanut butter chocolate chip and coconut chai ( surprise , surprise ). The peanut butter batch ended up somewhat grainy and needs some tweaking. But the chai? Perfection.

I imagine that this sweetly spiced ice cream would also make a terrific milkshake. If you’d like, you can use light coconut milk to cut out some of the fat, but it will make the texture less creamy and more icy in the end.

Ingredients

1 14 ounce can coconut milk
2 tablespoons instant chai powder OR 3 tablespoons chai tea, ground to a powder

Instructions

In a small saucepan over low heat, mix the water and sugar. Heat, stirring constantly, until the sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from the heat.
Mix in the coconut milk and chai. Refrigerate until completely cooled, at least 1 hour.
Pour the coconut milk into your ice cream maker, and process according to the manufacturer’s instruction.
Breyer’s is pretty good too. It’s a long-running joke in my family actually! My grandfather was ranting about how food is all full of un-pronouncable things. To prove his point, he ran to the freezer and pulled out Breyer’s ice cream! I think the ingredients are milk, cream, sugar, and vanilla (maybe one more thing, but pretty basic!). Not great for proving his point‚
Chai ice cream looks great! I’ll save the recipe for if I ever give in to my ice-cream maker desires as well.
If you are a member of Costco, their brand of Kirkland vanilla ice cream is our favorite. It is very dense and has 4 ingredients: milk, cream, sugar, and vanilla.
Some of my family has an allergic reaction to High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), which is also in most ice creams and many, many more products that are not even sweet. We had to eliminate that from our diet. The next step was eliminating corn syrup, which seems just as hard to find normal” food without that junk in it. It is possible and we have been HFCS free for years and CS free for a year and no more migraines!

Now I want an ice-cream maker too!