Strawberry and coconut icecream sandwiches

Babiche Martens

Thinking about the flavours of strawberries, vanilla and coconut, I decided to have a go at making homemade strawberry icecream, sandwiched between crisp and slightly chewy coconut wafers. Delicious and fun to make - for all ages.

Icecream

1 ½ cups	Milk
½	Vanilla beans, split
2 ½ cups	Cream
8	Free-range egg yolks
1 ¼ cups	Caster sugar
1 punnet	Strawberries

Coconut Wafer

2 ½ cups	Desiccated coconut
⅓ cup	Flour
½ tsp	Salt
⅔ cup	Condensed milk
1 tsp	Vanilla essence/extract

Directions

1. To make the icecream, pour the milk and cream into a heavy based saucepan. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into the mix. Stir and heat until just beneath boiling point. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove the vanilla bean.
2. Whisk the egg yolks together with 1 cup of the sugar until pale and the sugar has dissolved. Whisk 1 cup of the hot milk mixture on to the yolks then whisk the mixture back into the remaining milk.
3. Return the saucepan to a low heat and cook while stirring constantly until the mixture begins to thicken. Strain and chill.
4. Roughly chop the strawberries and combine with the remaining sugar. Leave for 30 minutes then fold into the custard and transfer to the icecream machine.
5. To make the wafers, preheat the oven to 180C. Grease or line two baking sheets.
6. Mix the flour, coconut and salt together. Pour in the condensed milk and vanilla and mix. Form into flat 8cm rounds and bake for about 15 minutes or until golden. Let cool before sandwiching with the icecream.