Toasted coconut ice cream

My usual pattern for making ice cream is to cook the ingredients the night before, and then churn the next day. That's because most of the recipes that I like involve infusing flavorings into a milk-sugar base, which you then cook with egg yolks to form a custard. The process takes an hour or two, and then you have to chill the finished mixture thoroughly before churning.

Last night I toasted coconut, then infused it and a vanilla pod in a warm milk-cream-sugar mixture for an hour. Afterward, I added a bit of salt. I don't usually do that, but the recipe called for a big pinch of salt, and the flavor seemed too simple without any salt at all.

Toasting coconut on the stove

Today I churned the ice cream—good timing, since the weather turned surprisingly hot.

All churned

Nathan and Cosmo declared the ice cream delicious.

Nathan scraping the churning bowl for another taste

I'm not crazy about this flavor, though. I usually like coconut, but this is just kind of boring and too sweet for my taste.

The fix? Bittersweet chocolate sauce! Wow, what a completely delicious mix. The little bits of hard chocolate in the sauce, which I'd considered faults before, only made the combo better.