Ice buko

A coconut ice block frozen solid without churning, in a cup with a stick in it.

Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains dairy (condensed milk), dairy (evaporated milk).

Ingredients

• 500 g young coconut strips
• 500 ml evaporated milk
• 300 g condensed milk
• 150 g caster sugar
• 300 ml coconut water
• 100 g red beans, cooked and sweetened
• 0.25 teaspoon salt

Method

1. NEVER CHURNED, AND THAT IS THE POINT. The sorbetes on this site is churned or beaten every forty minutes to keep it soft. This is poured into cups and frozen solid and left alone, and it is meant to be hard -- something you bite and suck rather than scoop.
2. Because nothing breaks the crystals up, the recipe has to do it instead: the condensed milk and the sugar are both there to keep it from freezing into a block of flavoured ice. Reduce either and you get exactly that.
3. Dissolve the sugar in the coconut water completely, cold, stirring 2 minutes. Any grains left stay gritty -- nothing here is ever warmed.
4. Stir in the evaporated milk, condensed milk and salt.
5. TASTE IT NOW AND MAKE IT TOO SWEET. Cold dulls sweetness sharply and frozen dulls it further; a mixture that tastes right at room temperature tastes of nothing frozen.
6. Fold the coconut strips through. They want to be in long shreds so there is something to chew against the ice.
7. A spoonful of red beans in the bottom of each cup, then the mixture poured over, to about 1 cm below the rim.
8. Freeze 1 hour 30, until half set, then push a wooden stick into the middle of each. Put in at the start, the stick sinks or leans.
9. Freeze at least 6 hours more, or overnight.
10. To turn one out, hold the cup in your hands for 20 seconds and pull the stick steadily. Run it under a tap and the surface melts to slush.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Philippines · All recipes