Coconut Chilli Ice Cream – Recipe

I've been obsessing over the idea of chilli ice cream – something that's hot and cold at the same time. Being the mad foodie scientist I am, I ate raw chillies to get the heat balance just right, so you don't have to. Thankfully, the result was extremely worth it.

Now I've done the hard (and painful) work, here's the super-easy recipe itself. The ice cream has just enough heat at the end of each mouthful to make things fun, but not enough to make you sweat. Four chillies sounds like a lot, but the cooling effect of the cream and coconut milk mutes it a lot, so don't worry.

Also, no churning necessary.

Ready? Let's go.

Ingredients:

3 medium hot chillies, topped, deseeded and sliced
200ml water
200g caster sugar
Additional caster sugar for crystalising
250ml thick coconut cream
300ml double cream

Method:

1. Bring the sugar and water to a boil in a saucepan and add the chillies, boiling for 30 minutes. Take off the heat, leave to cool a little, and pick the chillies out: shake these dry, roll them in a little more caster sugar and let dry, then chop into little pieces. Reserve the syrup and let it cool completely (don't worry if it crystallises).

2. Whisk the double cream and coconut cream together until thick, then whisk in the chilli syrup. Fold in the chopped crystallised chillies, scoop into a container and freeze for at least four hours. Now enjoy!

Bonus: I also made ice cream snow skin mooncakes: all I did was scoop a little ice cream, re-freeze and wrap in my snow skin recipe.

Enjoy, and have fun.