Memories – Pineapple Coconut Ice Cream

I love the triathlon community. And I equally love the foodie community. Anytime I pop onto Twitter I can find an interesting discussion in my stream about the latest seasonal produce, or the newest restaurant, or “the best place” for whatever food is of the moment.  My google reader is full of my favourite food bloggers – sources of inspiration for their writing, their ideas, their gardening – each with their own personal touch that they bring to internet.  One of the blogs I enjoy reading the most is Kavey Eats.  Kavey lives in London (like me) and goes out to eat (a lot, like me), and cooks (like me).  And she always has something going on at her blog that inspires me.  I *finally* got around to ordering some tomato seeds for my first ever go at Spitalfields tomatoes thanks to inspiration from Kavey.  And I have been churning away on my ice cream thanks to her stream of monthly Kavey Eats Ice Cream challenges.

The March Kavey Eats Ice Cream Challenge was to re-create a childhood ice cream experience or memory or flavour.  Ah, if only… But I did give it a good try!

Growing up a Beachgirl

Many people know I grew up in Hawaii.  I spent A LOT of time at the beach growing up.  Mostly body surfing, some body boarding.  Often on a towel reading for English class.  Very regularly going to the beach before school.  We used to have rules about washing our feet off to get the sand off our toes before coming inside the house.  Yes. I really was a beachgirl.

But I also worked with The Beach Boys.  The original legends of Waikiki.  Ok, not *the original* beach boys.  They were around in about 1900 or so, and brought surfing back to the shores of Waikiki, legends like Duke Kahanamoku… Not them.  But their successors.  The “original modern” beach boys. 

Guys like Bobby Ah Choi, who basically created paddle boarding, standing up and paddling out through the surf to take photos of tourists out on the canoes and on their surfing lessons. 

Photo from the Pops Ah Choy Foundation website

I knew his father Johnny aka Pops.  There was Gabby and Aki. And many other “original legends”.  Guys with good hearts. 

And me. A haole girl from Hawaii Kai, just working on Waikiki beach, renting surfboards.

These guys treated me like their daughter, they looked out for me.  They showed me what Aloha meant.  I think of them each time I think about home.  Each time I listen to Hawaiian music and hear the words “Ha’ina mai kapuana”…

Ah. Memories.

The Beach Boys stand I worked at was the one near the Duke Kahanamoku statue.  And right by there was THE BEST SNACK BAR IN THE WHOLE WORLD.  Ok, maybe the memory is better with time.  But seriously, NOTHING beat a loco moco from that snack bar.  And the pineapple coconut ice cream?  To die for.  Especially after a hot day renting boards, and then an evening playing on them before heading home.

Coconut Pineapple Ice Cream

My ice cream experiment for the Kavey Eats challenge was inspired by that snack bar memory.  It isn’t perfect – yet.  I decided to try to replicate things with a dairy-free attempt.  The next time I do this, I will try it with dairy, to try to improve the creamy texture.  I will also increase the pineapple proportions slightly as this was more coconut with just a hint of pineapple – and I would prefer the reverse. 

I give this first attempt to recreate my memory a B (on a scale from A to F with A being the highest mark).  My husband LOVED it, giving it a solid A. But he wasn’t working from my memories.  It was all new to him. 

I would liken this to pina colada ice cream.  I suspect, actually, that you could take the ice cream, blend it with some high quality spiced rum, and you would have an amazing pina colada smoothie… Hm… Now that is an idea!

Ingredients

1 can coconut milk
1 can coconut cream
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup pineapple juice
200g diced pineapple
2/3 cup dessicated coconut

Instructions

1. Pulse pineapple with pineapple juice in a blender, until a chunky mush has formed.
2. Heat coconut milk and cream to warm, adding caster sugar, until the sugar has dissolved.
3. Add pineapple to coconut mixture, and add dessicated coconut.
4. Stir, and then pour into ice cream machine. (or if you don’t have a machine, freeze until semi-solid, blend until smooth, refreeze, blend again, freeze again and serve)

Enjoy!