Recently we had an all-too-brief holiday in Bali. After spending a few days at the beach, we headed away from the crowds and into the relative quiet amongst the rice paddies in Ubud.
Wow, what a beautiful place! And let me tell you, it’s a good place for vegan food!
There was this gorgeous little coconut shop, selling everything to do with coconuts, from whole coconuts to coconut ice cream.
And Oh. My. Word was their vegan coconut ice cream good! Like….the best ever.
They serve their coconut ice cream as a single scoop in a little ice cream cup with those little wooden ice cream sticks, and sprinkled on top is the most glorious toasted coconut topping.
We ended up leaving Bali ahead of schedule so I didn’t get to eat NEARLY as much of this coconut ice cream as I was planning to, but this ice cream and topping was lingering on in my mind as a food highlight of that trip. And I wanted to try and recreate it.
So, since lately I’ve been making quite a few ice creams, like a vegan vanilla ice cream and a vegan mint chocolate chip, I thought I would go ahead and make a purely coconut version.
No other flavorings, just a beautifully delicious coconut blank slate that would be just perfect for a toasted coconut topping!
I think I recreated it pretty well. Probably not exactly, as I’m sure they have some secrets up their sleeve in that Ubud cafe, but my version is pretty damn delicious too.
This coconut ice cream is really basic, just 4-ingredients, and that is topped with the super simple 2-ingredient toasted coconut topping.
You can just take a scoop of this and pretend you’re up in the mountains in Ubud!
It was so hot when we took these photos that the ice cream was melting faster than we could get the photos taken!
Literally, the minute the ice cream left the freezer it was starting to melt.
So really it was a great time to be eating ice cream. Maybe not the best time to be photographing it – but eating it yes!
If you love coconuts and tropical islands, then you will love this gorgeous vegan coconut ice cream. The coconut ice cream alone is smooth, ultra-creamy and ridiculously good, but add the toasted coconut topping and it’s swoon city. Hee hee, can’t believe I said ‘swoon city’.
There’s one I’ve promised my sister I won’t use though, and that’s ‘more-ish’. Hahaha! That’s her pet-hate. 
More vegan ice cream
We’ve done loads of flavors! If you love peanut butter then you’re going to love our vegan peanut butter ice cream. Our decadent vegan chocolate ice cream is just like the name suggests, crazy rich and decadent! You will love it!
Our vegan salted caramel ice cream has all the caramel flavor you could dream of and there’s even an optional salted caramel sauce! Our vegan cookies and cream ice cream and our peanut butter banana ice cream don’t even need to be churned.
And don’t forget our vegan pumpkin ice cream and vegan mango ice cream. Basically if it’s vegan ice cream you want, we’ve got you covered.
So let us know what you think of this vegan coconut ice cream in the comments and please rate the recipe too! Thanks so much.
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Vegan Coconut Ice Cream
Ingredients
For the Vegan Coconut Ice Cream:
- 14 ounces Canned Coconut Milk (400ml)
- 14 ounces Canned Coconut Cream (400ml)
- ½ cup White Granulated Sugar (100g)
- ¼ cup Maple Syrup (60ml) or Golden Syrup
For the Toasted Coconut Topping:
- 1 Recipe Toasted Coconut
Instructions
- The night before you want to have ice cream, place the freezer bowl of your ice cream maker into the freezer.
- Then in a pot, heat up the coconut milk, coconut cream, sugar and syrup to a simmer, stirring constantly.
- As soon as it reaches a simmer, remove from the heat and blend with a handheld (immersion) blender for 30 seconds.
- If you don't have a handheld blender, then transfer the mixture to a blender jug and blend it in there, just make sure the lid is firmly closed.
- Pour the mixture into a container with a lid and keep in the refrigerator overnight.
- The next day, remove the freezer bowl from the freezer, and get your ice cream machine ready.
- Pour the mixture into the ice cream machine and churn according to your ice cream makers manufacturer instructions. It should be around 25-40 minutes to reach soft serve consistency.
- As soon as it reaches soft serve consistency, transfer the ice cream to a freezer safe container, smooth it out, cover with foil and place into the freezer to set firmly. This can take 4-6 hours or even longer depending on your freezer.
- Prepare your toasted coconut topping as per the linked recipe.
- Serve the ice cream with toasted coconut sprinkled on top.
Notes
- Nutritional information is for the vegan coconut ice cream only, nutritional information for the toasted coconut topping can be found on that separate linked recipe.
This recipe rocks!!! It’s 4 ingredients, super easy and super cheap! A pint of vegan ice cream is $4.99 and, there are ingredients I don’t like. Yeah, I have to hit it with the stick blender before loading it up. No big deal. The best part is scraping out the frozen stuck to the sides ice cream. I’m serving it to guests with homemade raspberry sauce! Another perfect recipe! I’ll bet I could turn this into an amazing pina colada!
Thanks so much Bonnie, so happy you like the recipe!
What do you do if you don’t have a ice cream machine?
You can beat the ice cream mixture in your stand mixer, then place it into the freezer, but before it’s frozen, bring it out a couple more times and beat it again. This gets the texture the closest to what you’ll get with an ice cream machine. Or you can just freeze it after making the mix. The texture won’t be as ‘light and fluffy’ but it will still be delicious.
Great flavor! Is there a way to prevent the coconut cream from separating after placing the mixture into the fridge? I had to use the hand blender again to break up the hardened coconut cream before placing it in the ice cream machine.
Oh wow, that’s some determined coconut cream! Haha I haven’t had that happen, but you could leave it less time in the fridge or just continue to give it another blend before churning. 🙂
Hi Alison, do you use the water from the tin coconut milk?
Hi there, yes you use the whole can, no need to separate the cream from the water.
Hi I’d love to make this coconut ice cream for my daughter, but I don’t have an ice cream maker, is there another way of making it please.
Yes it’s possible to make without an ice cream maker. If you have an electric mixer, then whip the mixture to incorporate air, then freeze and before it freezes properly bring it out again and whip again. Do this a couple more times and you should have a very similar texture to what you get in an ice cream maker.
I just got back from Ubud and was searching for recipes to help me recreate Tukie’s vegan coconut ice cream! I found your site and am excited to try the recipe. I think it’s the same shop you went to since it’s well known in Ubud. One note is that Tukie’s uses a ground-up form of coconut brittle in addition to the toasted coconut as a topping, so I am trying to find a recipe for that too.
Cool! Then you know how good their ice cream is! Hope this recipe hits the spot, very interesting about the ground up coconut brittle! 🙂
I just saw this and thought to myself, ” Oh my god, it reminds me of the most amazing ice cream I had at this coconut shop in Ubud. I would get a plane ticket just to go there and have some….and then I read that you had been there!!!
Hahaha, how cool! What a great place isn’t it! Would love to go back there someday. 🙂
Food for the soul – I love the simplicity and richness of your recipes
This looks incredible!! I love coconut anything 🙂
Thanks Liz! And I’m totally with you on that! 🙂