Two ingredients. Frozen mango + coconut cream = the most delicious, creamy, refreshing, amazing, ice cream that’s just basically screaming “summatime!!!!”
But first let’s play a little game. Which one of these is not like the others?
Really hard, I know. A bunch of short Italians (four of my cousins with my aunt and uncle) and then this tall, gorgeous, fair skinned, light haired beauty! Well that beauty is Kim.
I can’t unfortunately take credit for this amazing dessert because as you can tell from the title it was Kim who first made it for me. This occurred last year when a trip to see Dan’s parents in Cali also meant we were close enough to make a drive to Mark and Kim’s. They graciously hosted us for a fabulous dinner followed by Kim’s dessert creation she literally whipped up on the fly. My kinda girl!!
I’m so lucky with all my cousins. Saying I totally hit the jackpot in the family department feels like an understatement. I only have six first-cousins total, so I guess I won the whole quality over quantity battle. The only downside is that we live far too many states away from each other. On the bright side, it makes every chance we get to hang out precious from start to finish.
Like last year to celebrate a big milestone birthday for my mom in the California wine country. My dad orchestrated the most epic celebration. How fitting that TODAY is my mom’s birthday — Happy birthday, mama!! Can you believe it’s already been a year since this trip?!
The trip was filled with bike riding, quality family time, and of course lots of good food.
Can we go back?!
But back to Kim, the inspiration of this post. On last year’s Napa birthday/ bike trip Kim and I got to ride side-by-side a couple days and chat about all kinds of things, food obviously being one of them. Kim’s a professional volleyball player, so hearing about her approach to food was so cool. She made some dietary changes in the last year that totally resonated with me. I loved talking with her about it. She’s mid-season right now and kicks off seven weeks of domestic and international play starting in Seattle this August. Oh and she works full time also managing an amazing team that supports sustainablity and energy efficiency in businesses. Superwoman.
Kim is my kind of cook. She dumped some frozen mango into the blender, added some of the coconut cream and went with it. A little more of one or the other, just tasting and tweaking as she went. She had this whipped up for us in no time flat. We both have a Vitamix blender and I’d say any high powered blender is necessary for this one. (If you’ve had success with things like this using a food processor leave a note in the comments below! I haven’t tried it.) There’s not much liquid in this recipe, so you really need a powerful blender to achieve the smooth consistency.
I aired on the lighter side of coconut cream (used 3 T in this recipe) because my husband isn’t super into the coconut flavor. (He craaaaazy.) So feel free to go up to to 5 T coconut cream if you dig coconut-y goodness. Feel free to dump it in and not truly measure like Kim (and me when I’m not making recipes to post).
Coconut cream is sold in cans like the one shown above which I purchased at my local natural/more healthy grocery store. I believe it was either in the baking aisle or the Asian aisle. (I honestly can’t remember cause I stocked up a while ago and haven’t bought it since!)
If you can’t find coconut cream, just buy regular full-fat coconut milk. Don’t shake the can. Open it from the bottom and you should be able to scoop out the cream that settled to the bottom.
- 2 cups frozen mango
- 3 tablespoons canned coconut cream
- In a high-powered blender (I use a Vitamix) add the mango and coconut cream.
- If using a Vitamix, set to "Frozen Dessert" setting and turn on. While it's running, if the mixture stops moving, use the masher to continuously press the mixture down toward the blades.
- Serve and enjoy!
I almost inserted the word “healthy” in the recipe title before the words “ice cream”. But I KNOW it would totally turn some people off. Suddenly they won’t like it. Isn’t that a funny phenomenon? Sometimes as soon as a person hears that something is “healthy” they immediately dismiss that it will be good. Sometimes before even giving it a chance. On the other hand, there’s those people that hear something is “healthy” and it skews their opinion the opposite way – they like something just because it’s labeled “healthy” even if it’s kinda gross or sub-par to the real deal. Which way do you fall? It’s healthy = it’s gross OR it’s healthy = it’s soooo good?
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