Saturday, July 11, 2009

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!

9 comments:

  1. Oh. My GOSH.

    This looks positively decadent. I love it :) Perfect for summer!

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  2. What a great idea to use Greek yogurt! I bet this was delicious. I will have to try it next time I luck out with a good mango. Thank you for the very nice shout-out! The recipe will be up on Thursday.

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  3. Do you deliver?

    (PS: I finally bought ice pop molds so we can make one of the other recipes you posted a few weeks ago. My daughter is thrilled at the idea of ice pops for breakfast...)

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  4. Um, YUM. You are so imaginative.

    PS: Every time I try to read your blog, I'm getting a sign-in for twitter...help! On my other computer I couldn't even open the page (tried three times today...finally came over to a different computer and it lets me in to leave a comment but I'm still getting twitter-stalked)! xoxo

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  5. Ink, I am getting the same damn thing? I was getting some weird stuff from overseas, and then my friend Phoo-D had a really scary thing happen to her where a spambot from Asia went through (and I may have the details wrong but it was something like this) 60 pages of her blog was scanned/looked at in 3 minutes, or something nuts like that. Phoo-d, feel free to correct me on the details, but that made a huge impression on me.

    So someone suggested turning Twitter to lock mode...meaning, people have to "ask" if they can follow you and get your messages. Meaning, it's not public domain, which, because I am a retard, I don't really get. I hate it. It has been NOTHING but a pain in the ass, but there's been some real invasion of privacy going on.

    IF ANYONE can help me figure out why my settings are crazy, why things that are supposed to be private aren't, and how to fix it so the people I love best don't have to jump through hoops to get here, please, pleae help. I am technologically handicapped and need help.

    ck: Coming up--strawberry-blueberry yogurt breakfast pops. If you have a video-cam, we can breakfast together.

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  6. I'm so sorry about the scary stuff! ((((TKW))))

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  7. I got that Twitter notice when I was on your site last week, too. I didn't today, though. I wish I could help, but sadly, I am clueless. Let me know if you figure it out.

    Anyhow, can you give me a few tasty ways to eat Greek yogurt? I tried some with granola a while back and I just didn't get it. Is it an acquired taste? I love it's nutritional value and hate how sugary other yogurts are.

    P.S. The ice cream looks deelish!

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  8. This looks and sounds really god, I just need summer to rock on around. I love the Greek yogurt- very cool!

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  9. Gibby,

    I don't really like sweets, so I use the Greek yogurt in savory things in place of sour cream--dips, salad dressings, tzatziki, that kind of thing.

    The girls like it with a big drizzle of honey and some strawberries.

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