Chocolate and Coconut Blueberry Ice Cream Bars

Apologies for the huge image dump. This is literally one of my favourite food photos I’ve ever taken, and I seriously ended up taking 40 photos and could barely had the heart to delete any, thus the overload photos in this post.

I have to admit, this is one recipe which I have been planning for a couple weeks now, and I just keep imagining it, and visioning what it would look like, and I finally bought ALL the ingredients I needed for this, so here it is, it’s very coconut heavy!

So I’ve been thinking about making some bars, and a few weeks ago, I saw a photo of this amazing looking blueberry cake or ice cream on This Rawsome Vegan Life, so I was so inspired to make something that looks like a swirl of purple in white with blueberries.

Unfortunately, this is one of those super long and complicated recipes that do require a lot of preparation, but one good thing is, you can double the recipe, make more and just keep them in the freezer, as they will keep (but probably be a bit hard unless you ‘defrost’ it first).

One of the most challenging things for me when I made this was cracking open the coconut. Oh man, that shell is evil, and impossible when I first started. But I found putting the coconut on a flat wooden surface and bashing full force with a strong knife did the job.

For the blueberry and acai powder and cabbage juice, those aren’t necessary so only do them if you feel like it. If you are boiling the cabbage juice, be sure that the liquid is very purple, otherwise it may not even make all that much of a difference.

I actually have a story about the image. Well, I was all “envisioning this photo” and I realised that a shop in this mall had been selling bunches of dried lavender for $15, and for some reason when I was at the mall, I decided not to buy it (silly me…).

I ended up regretting it, so I went back to the mall attempting to buy it and OMG there was this accident, and the cars were stuck in this huge traffic jam, and we were stuck there for ages, just moving an inch at a time (or so it feels…)

My partner was all like, “let’s go home” and I refused, because we had come so far. I wasn’t gonna go home cos I NEEDED the lavender, I just had this image in my head with lavender with this recipe and we ended up arriving an hour later, and I finally bought the lavender.

So anyway, this fitted perfectly with the silver plate which arrived a few days ago. I am really proud of these photos, because I think when I imagine it in my mind, I have this force of motivation that makes me want to create exactly what I see in my mind.

I’ve noticed that it’s often my visions in my mind that leads me into creating some of the sites and layouts that I have. I guess vision is very important if you are a creator, because sometimes, all you need to do is SEE it, and you can do anything to achieve it.

Chocolate and Coconut Blueberry Ice Cream Bars

Cream
1 cup young coconut meat
1/2 cup cashews, pre-soaked
1/4 cup virgin coconut oil
2 tablespoons coconut manna (or coconut butter/creamed coconut)
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1/4 cup fresh blueberries
1/4 teaspoon blueberry and acai powder (optional)
1 tablespoon purple cabbage juice (optional)

Base
1/3 cup almonds
1/2 cup walnuts
2 tablespoons instant oats
1 tablespoon white wine
1 tablespoon dark cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon ground vanilla powder
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
9-10 pitted dates

Topping
2 tablespoons virgin coconut oil
1 tablespoon dark cocoa powder
1 teaspoon pure maple syrup

Cream: Put 1/2 cup of blueberries in the freezer to harden overnight. Be sure to soak the cashews in warm water for at least 30 minutes, but longer is recommended.

Crack open a couple of young coconuts with a knife (bang down hard), to make a small hole on the top enough for a spoon to go inside. Drizzle the coconut water out for other uses (or you can drink it), then use a spoon to scoop out the flesh. You will need the meat of about 2 young coconuts to make a cup.

In a high speed bender like Vitamix, add the young coconut meat, the cashews (drained from all the water), coconut oil, coconut manna/butter/cream, vanilla extract and pure maple syrup.

Blend on full speed until the mixture is a very smooth cream. Spoon it out (even the last teaspoon) into a bowl, add in the frozen blueberries and fresh ones, stir it around and within a few minutes, the coconut should thicken.

If you want to make the cream even more purple, add the blueberry and acai powder, then boil a handful of purple cabbage with 1/4 cup water, keep cooking until the water becomes very purple. Allow it to cool, then measure out a tablespoon and add it to the coconut blueberry mixture. Stir some more and put it in the freezer for the time being.

Base: Add the almonds, walnuts, oats, white wine, dark cocoa powder, vanilla powder, vanilla extract and dates in the blender. Pulse and stir with a spoon until the mixture becomes sticky, but should not be blended fully.

Assemble: Align two pieces of parchment paper on a bread pan or square pan, and spoon out the sticky base mixture onto the pan. Use your hands or spoon to press it tightly together, you may not need to fill the entire pan. Be sure all sides are evened out, and the thickness is even as well.

Take the cream out of the freezer, give it a few good stirs. At this point, you should see a lot of the blueberries breaking, which will give it an even nicer shade of purple.

Spoon the cream on top of the base, use a flat spatula to even out the top so that it’s all flat. Put it back into the freezer for about 20 minutes.

Finally, mix together the topping ingredients, including the coconut oil, cocoa powder and pure maple syrup. Stir together very well, and drizzle on top of the cream. Be sure you turn it back and forth so the topping can reach all parts of the surface. They do harden very quickly. Do not touch the topping, you may break it!

Put it back in the freezer for about 1-2 hours until it’s hard enough to be cut into bars. Don’t cut it too early, otherwise it may become very messy.

Note: The reason why this recipe calls for both fresh and frozen blueberries is because the frozen ones will help with thickening the coconut oil and such, and the fresh ones can break easier and will give the cream its colour, so be sure you freeze 1/2 cup of it overnight.

If you really can’t get access to young coconut meat, you may want to try a) blending shredded coconut or use a can of full fat coconut cream but have it refrigerated 1-2 nights, and have all the clear liquid squeezed out.