Coconut Vanilla Mango Ice Cream

What do you do when your electric 6 quart ice cream maker doesn't sell in your yard sale? You make ice cream, of course! I was glad it didn't sell, but I hadn't used it for a while. So when I came across some bargain priced organic coconut milk, I knew what I had to do. An extended family gathering made a perfect reason to whip up some of the homemade variety and share. I told my children, only when Papa is home, can we bring it out of the freezer to enjoy some more.

I made a full batch (a full 6 quarts, my capacity for our ice cream maker). I'll share the amounts I used for the entire batch. Adjust as needed for your use. I based my recipe on one I found over at The Nourishing Gourmet (essentially, I made three recipe's worth with added mango).

Coconut Vanilla Mango Ice Cream

10 and 1/2  cups coconut milk
1 cup honey
6 Tablespoons homemade vanilla extract (recipe coming soon!)
2 pounds frozen mango chunks (about 6 cups)

In batches, I blended the ingredients together in my Vitamix and poured it all into the ice cream maker's metal canister and followed the directions for the ice and rock salt to process it into ice cream. It took an 1 hour for it to freeze. Then I put it all into containers and put into the freezer to harden.

We served it the next day. Good stuff. I used ice that wasn't crushed, so it came out the consistency of snow, but it was still delicious and creamy because of the coconut milk. Next time I will just pulse blend the mangoes into the mix to keep it in small pieces instead of pureeing it. I think it would have a bigger mango flavor that way. Also, when adding the vanilla, I'm going to stir it in instead so there are larger vanilla bean flecks.

I think my daughter likes it. =)