Creamy Raspberry and Coconut Ice Cream

I love Summer. The sun, beaches, gardening, relaxing with a good magazine, long days, ice cream, summer fruits.  There is so much to love.  For a bit of a treat I whipped up these creamy raspberry and coconut ice cream pops and they were quite delicious, especially with the chocolate coating and pistachio nuts.

Coconut cream is the basis for these ice cream blocks, making them suitable for those who are lactose intolerant or have dairy allergies.

This recipe contains no added sugar. Instead, it  uses stevia as a sugar free sweetener.  You could use another sweetener of your choice here if you don’t have stevia.

The creamy raspberry and coconut ice cream is really easy to make.It does involve a couple of rounds in the blender, but this is worth it give it a smoother, less icy texture.

These are quite rich, so keep them for a treat 🙂

Ingredients:

1 can of coconut cream (I used Ceres Organics)
1 1/4 cup of raspberries (frozen or fresh are fine)
1 1/2 tablespoons of stevia (I used Naturals brand)
150g dark chocolate, melted.
Handful of shelled pistachio nuts

Method

Add the coconut cream, 1 cup of the raspberries and the stevia in a blender or food processor.  Blend until smooth.  Place in a bowl in the freezer and set a timer for 45 minutes.  After this time, take out and blend again.  Set timer for 30 minutes, blend again.  Repeat one more time.  (NOTE: If you want, you can skip this step, but your blocks will contain more ice crystals, the extra blending makes a creamier mixure)  After this, pour the mixture into ice block molds.  Press in the remaining raspberries to the ice block mixture.  Place in the freezer until set.

Once the iceblocks are set, you can add the chocolate drizzle.

Break up the chocolate into pieces and place in a glass bowl in the microwave.  Heat in 30 second bursts, stiring between each interval.  It shouldn’t take longer than 2 minutes to melt the chocolate.  Do not over heat.  Stir the chocolate well and leave to cool a little, so its still runny but not super hot.

Take the iceblocks from the moulds and lay on a piece of baking paper.  Spoon the melted chocolate over one half of the ice block.  Sprinkle over the pistachio nuts.  The chocolate will harden quickly and look like it’s not stuck to the blocks. Fear not though, place back in the freezer on the paper and the chocolate will set to the ice cream.

Enjoy!  This recipe will make 4-6 ice blocks depending on the size of your moulds.