Mommy's Turn: Coconut-Mango Frozen Yogurt

Mama won the ice cream Lotto this week, and while she contemplated peach ice cream (usually a summer favorite), Rocky Mountain peaches aren't good this year due to a spring cold snap. I am crying for a Palisade peach just thinking about it.

Ice cream is great, but sometimes my thighs cry for mercy and something lighter is necessary. I took a snoop around the bookstore, spied David Lebovitz's book The Perfect Scoop and found a vanilla frozen yogurt recipe. For those of you who aren't foodies, David Lebovitz is pastry chef, cookbook author and blogger extraordinaire. He wrote the aforementioned cookbook, The Perfect Scoop, which celebrates all things sweet and frozen. My fellow food blogger Phoo-d says it's her favorite ice-cream cookbook by far, and I believe it, because David knows food. His basic frozen yogurt recipe looks like this:

I loved that David used Greek-style yogurt, which is rich and delicious and good for you. I wanted something a little more exotic than vanilla, though. I went shopping in my refrigerator (like mother, like daughter) and pantry and found mango, coconut extract and a lonely little 1/2 cup of sweetened flaked coconut.

Here's the recipe, adapted from David Lebovitz's Vanilla Frozen Yogurt.

Coconut-Mango Frozen Yogurt
makes about a quart

3 cups Greek-style yogurt, such as Fage
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon coconut extract
2/3 cup chopped ripe mango
1/2 cup sweetened flaked coconut

Whisk the yogurt, sugar and coconut extract together, allowing sugar to dissolve. Chill 1 hour. Add mixture to ice cream maker and run per manufacturer's directions. Add the mango and coconut the last 5 minutes of churning time.

I liked it a lot. The mixture wasn't overpowered by coconut flavor, and the mango added a burst of freshness.



*** I urge you to take David's advice and use a whole milk, good quality, Greek yogurt. Or, if you live in Paris like David, he says French yogurt works brilliantly.

I liked the tang that the yogurt lended; the girls, not so much. This wasn't as sweet as the commercial kinds of frozen yogurt (eg: TCBY) that the girls are used to. But I liked that it wasn't too sweet. And I think my thighs appreciate the brief repreive from cream this week.

PS: If you want a stunning set of photos and a recipe for Coconut-Mango Ice Cream from The Perfect Scoop, pop into http://www.phoo-d.com sometime in the next week or two. She tells me that it's coming up!