Piña Colada Ice Cream

'Ice cream' is a bit generous, but this is the closest I've gotten to it. If there's dairy involved I have used either buttermilk or crème fraîche for frozen desserts. I like my dairy cultured. And prefer yogurt in non-frozen form. But crème fraîche is just so darn full of fat it really doesn't make a very balanced dessert. So for this I mixed yogurt with crème fraîche, along with lots of fruit, and it's pretty damn good. Oh, also I used a trick that I read about in Saveur -- you can reduce the icy-ness of  homemade ice cream by reducing the liquid that is available to form ice, and you do this by adding cornstarch so you are freezing a pudding instead of a syrup. Awesome addition to the Sorbet Chronicles.


Piña Colada Ice Cream
1.5 c water

3T cornstarch

1c dried coconut

1c sugar

salt

1 frozen banana

2c frozen pineapple

2c creme fraiche

1/4c sugar

 

2T vanilla

 ~1.5c thin yogurt

Mix water, cornstarch, coconut, sugar, salt; bring to a simmer and cook till it thickens.

Stir in frozen fruit to cool the pudding, chill in fridge

Culture 2c heavy cream with a couple of tablespoons of buttermilk for 24 hours at room temperature

Whip to soft peaks, then add sugar and whip harder

Fold in pudding, vanilla, and the yogurt. Freeze with some stirring, but not too much is needed