“One more minute, oh no oh no, I JUST DON”T KNOW”
The young man behind the counter tutted and gestured to the queue winding out of the shop and down the street.
“Okay, okay, okay…strawberry”
This is one of a few wildly regrettable decisions I’ve made in my life. Strawberry gelato…I had the choice of the most devilish flavours the ice cream world can offer and I plumped for strawberry. Oh well, faced with 100 different flavours and about thirty seconds to make a decision what’s a girl to do but have an existential crisis in the middle of Rome’s famous Gelateria della Palma?
I have since learned from my mistake. Now when faced with gelato I go with anything involving chocolate…or caramel…or coffee…or all three. What I’ve really developed is something that affects most of us: Ben and Jerry Syndrome. It’s characterised by a great longing for layer upon layer of contrasting flavours and textures (need I mention my adoration for cookie dough ice cream?)
Luckily for me, the Italians know how to jazz up their gelato, and now you’ll find that many gelaterias boast rolling mounds of ice cream, studded with chocolate or streaked with salted caramel. It might not be traditional, but boy is it good.
One very memorable example of inventive ice cream artistry is Alaska – a tiny gelateria tucked within the coils of Venice’s streets and canals. The owner – a mad professor type– creates flavours such as Orange and Rocket and delicious peach granitas with slivers of basil. It’s fresh, it’s exciting, and the owner’s pride in his work is so distinctly Italian.
With summer making a glowing appearance over the last couple of days I decided to get inventive with ice cream too, (although I have to admit to a bit of prompting by this month’s We Should Cocoa challenge – to make an ice cream that includes chocolate.) So my creation is this utterly delicious Coconut, Lime and Chocolate no-churn ice cream. When I had my first taste this morning I just couldn’t stop at one scoop – it’s SO good and SO easy – please do give it a go!
No Churn Coconut Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
1 tin coconut milk
1 tin condensed milk
Zest and juice of one lime
100g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
- Whisk together the coconut milk, condensed milk, lime juice and zest until thick and frothy (a hand held beater works well)
- Transfer mixture to an air tight container and freeze for 45 minutes. Take out and whisk again. Add the chocolate and return to the freezer.
- Freeze for a further 3-4 hours until set.
To The Table 
Ooh wonderful, love the addition of lime and coconut milk. I’ve only made condensed milk ice-cream with double cream, so imagine this gives a much lighter texture. Will have to try it. Thanks for joining in with We Should Cocoa 🙂
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Great recipe. I like the idea of making home made icecream, but without an icecream maker and not wanting to spend the money on one, I really need to stick to no churn icecream. The downside is that the condensed milk / cream makes it very rich, so this will be a fantastic change.
I’m really glad you entered this into we should cocoa. I hadn’t seen your blog until now, but I’ve added it to my bloglovin’ now.
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Thank you so much for the lovely comment! The ice cream really isn’t too heavy at all, and has the most delicious hint of coconut…you have to try it!
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Well then, that means I have to get a lime and some condensed milk, right. Need to mentally add it to my shopping list for next time shopping, whenerver it will be. It sounds so tempting.
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You must buy a lime and condensed milk! They should be obligatory items on everybody’s shopping lists!
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