Pink Lemonade

We replace the coconut milk with lemonade from concentrate in this blushing-pink ice cream. It may seem odd to be massaging the lemon zest with the sugar, but the jagged edges of the sugar crystals aggravate the zest, teasing out more of its oils. More oils mean more flavour. You’ll notice we don’t call for the base to be strained. You want to see and taste that zest!

Ingredients

• Sugar 1 1/4 cups (250 g)
• Lemon Zest 2 Tbs (12 g), tightly packed (about 2 large lemons)
• Coconut Milk 2 x 400 ml cans, chilled for 24 hours
• Frozen Pink Lemonade Concentrate 1 x 295 ml can
• Fine Sea Salt 1/4 tsp

Make It

1. Prepare an ice bath.
2. Put sugar and lemon zest in a medium-sized bowl. Using your fingers, massage sugar into lemon zest until no clumps of zest remain.
3. Scoop out 1 1/2 cups (350 g) coconut cream from the chilled cans of coconut milk and set aside. Reserve coconut water for another use.
4. Put frozen pink lemonade concentrate in a medium-sized saucepan and melt over medium heat. Add the sugar mixture, coconut cream and salt. Stir over medium-high heat for 5–7 minutes, until sugar is dissolved and no visible bits of coconut cream remain. Remove from heat and strain through a fine-mesh sieve into the inner bowl of the prepared ice bath.
5. Cool the ice cream base in the ice bath until room temperature, stirring occasionally. Cover and chill in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours, or overnight.
6. Once the base is chilled, you may notice a layer of solids on the top. Give it all a quick mix to incorporate before churning. Place storage container in the freezer to chill. Freeze the mixture in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions until ice cream is thick and creamy and has increased in volume by about a third. The base is ready when (with the machine turned off) you can scoop a big spoon of it and watch the ice cream fall back into the bowl in thick trails.
7. Freshly churned ice cream can be enjoyed right away or, for a firmer scoop, stored in a chilled airtight container in the freezer for a further 2 hours. For optimal flavour and texture, homemade ice cream is best consumed within 2 weeks of being made.

Excerpted from Great Scoops: Recipes from a Neighborhood Ice Cream Shop by Marlene Haley and Amelia Ryan of The Merry Dairy with Anne DesBrisay. Photographs by Christian Lalonde. Copyright © 2022 by The Merry Dairy. Excerpted with permission from Figure 1 Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.