Homemade Bounty Bars

You can make bounty bars and you’ll only need 3 ingredients.

Like me you’re thinking GET OUT OF HERE, WHY HASN’T THIS BEEN BROUGHT TO MY ATTENTION BEFORE!!!

So I’ve got a bit of a thing for coconut, coconut jam drops, coconut ice cream, lamingtons and now bounty bars.  

For a coconut lover like me I can’t fathom why I haven’t made them before.  As I said you only need 3 ingredients.  They’re so easy to make, the only cooking involved is melting chocolate and most of the time involved was the bars sitting in the freezer or fridge doing their thing .  Most importantly they were crazy delicious.

 Just a tip it’s important to test the coconut condensed milk mixture for quality control, however you’ll need self control while doing this otherwise you’ll devour the lot and have none to coat in chocolate.

Homemade Bounty Bars

3/4 Can Condensed milk

3 cups shredded coconut

450 g chocolate (I used 1/2 milk 1/2 dark because that ‘s what was in the cupboard, use what you prefer)

Put coconut into bowl, pour in condensed milk, mix thoroughly. 

Using wet hands shape into bar shapes and place on baking paper lined tray.  Put tray into freezer for a couple of hours to firm up.

Once the bars are firm, melt chocolate.  I usually do it in the microwave on high for 30 sec bursts stiring in between each burst. 

Working in batches take several of the bars out of the freezer (if you take them all out the ones you do last will have softened up) and coat in melted chocolate.  I find the best way is to roll them in chocolate with 2 forks and let any excess chocolate drip off.  Place on another baking a paper lined tray.

Repeat with remaining bars and either leave on bench or put in fridge to set chocolate, fridge is best if it’s warm to hot in your house plus they’ll be set quicker meaning you can enjoy them sooner 

Keep them stored in the fridge. I imagine these would last up to 4-5 days but they lasted just over a day in this house as they were so moreish.

coconut icecream

Ice cream is usually made using eggs, and I have been known to make it that way (see champagne ice cream). But the problem with this is I use at a minimum twice the amount of ingredients. This would be because I get very easily distracted. So whilst I’m meant to be carefully stirring the egg mixture of a pot of simmering water I’m off getting distracted by glitter and unicorns or life. This means that if I’m not stirring the eggs at the right moment they over cook and turn into scrambled eggs. Now it may be just me but this is not really a desirable ingredient in ice cream.

So my go to everyday vanilla ice cream recipe is one that may not be as rich as others but it requires no eggs or stirring of ingredients of any kind over heat. I just chuck them in my mixer whisk to a bit frothy then pour in ice cream maker, which churns away for 20 mins and gives me ice cream (well it does after I freeze churned mixture for a few hours).

Anyway I got possessed by the need to make and eat coconut ice cream. After examine a few recipes on the internet I just decided to adapt my standard recipe and threw in some shredded coconut. Topped with melted dark chocolate it was rather like a frozen bounty bar.

Coconut Ice Cream

1 cup chilled cream
1 cup of chilled coconut cream
1 cup chilled milk
3/4 cup sugar
small handful of shredded coconut (optional)

In mixer with whisk attachment whisk together cream, coconut cream, milk and sugar. You want to whisk till the sugar has dissolved and its kinda frothy on op top. Pour into ice cream maker, churn. When it nearly done add in shredded coconut. Then pour into container freezer for a few hours till full frozen. If you don’t have an ice cream maker that ok, whisk it up then pop in freezer then whisk every 20 mins for a about 2 hours and it should get to the consistency of soft serve ice cream at which point add in shredded coconut stir and freeze.

I drizzled over some dark chocolate melted in the microwave and it set pretty quickly (a la homemade ice magic)

Part of the Sweet Adventures Blog Hop – Licence to Chill Hosted by the Kitchen Crusader

Champagne Ice Cream

I love champagne, there I’ve said it.

Maybe it’s clichéd, lady in her mid 30’s loving champagne, but it’s quite hard to find a bad champagne. Don’t get me wrong there are some average ones out there, but hardly any I’d class as bad. Plus it’s so celebratory drinking it. Perfect for so many occasions, catching up with friends, tick, enjoying pre dinner drinks, tick, Christmas day drinks, tick.

Last year before Christmas I became obsessed with the idea of making champagne ice cream. I had it in my head would go well with Christmas pudding. So after a fair few attempts (some ending in scrambled eggs) I made a good batch, taste tested it on my work colleagues, then made some for Christmas day, where I served it up with the Christmas pudding and……..

It went amazingly well with Christmas pudding.

There’s just one thing about the champagne ice cream, it requires 1/2 cup of champagne, this leaves an awful lot of a bottle left over. I’m sure like me you don’t want to waste it, so enjoy the rest of the champagne whilst the ice cream is chilling.

Champagne Ice Cream – adapted from Gourmet Traveller

1/12 cups cream

1/2 cup champagne (like most things related to cooking and wine, don’t use anything too cheap and nasty)

4 egg yolks

1/2 cup sugar

Combine cream and champagne in a sauce pan and just being to boil.

Meanwhile whisk egg yolks and sugar in bowl sitting over simmering water, whisk until pale and creamy.

Add eggs and sugar mixture to cream and champagne mixture. Whisk to combine. Heat over a medium heat, stirring with spoon, unlit thickened and coating back of spoon. Be careful with this as if you take it too far, it will scramble the eggs in the mixture.

one thickened put into bowl (not glass or ceramic) and put bowl into cold water and stir for a couple of minutes (you want to cool it down and prevent further cooking).

Once mixture is no longer hot, pop into fridge until cold. then churn in ice cream maker, if you don’t have an ice cream maker, that’s ok just beat it with beater, op in freezer 30 min, then beat again, repeat 3-4 times. Freeze until fully frozen.

Serve with Christmas pudding, Enjoy.

Part of the Sweet Adventure Blog Hop Sweets For Santa Hosted by the Hungry Australian

375 ml (1½ cups)	pouring cream
125 ml (½ cup)	Champagne
4	egg yolks
110 gm (½ cup)	caster sugar

Pear and Vanilla Vodka Granita with Sweetend Lemon Scented Cream

A while ago on the Sundays with Joy facebook group they made espresso granita with sweet lemon cream. Anyone who knows me knows I don’t like coffee, so I really didn’t want to make it as well its coffee flavoured. However I did play around and make granita based on a cocktail I had recently had. At the time I didn’t blog about it as it was the middle of winter and I had a couple of other posts on the go.

Well Summer’s got off to an early start here, cue ridiculous heat and some humidity. So I thought it might be time to revisit it. Its prefect for summer as its cold, icy and refreshing. It’s also really really really easy to make. You are pretty much mixing a few liquid ingredients, freezing then topping with some whipped cream sweetened with lemon infused sugar.

It’d be a delightful dinner party desert and its easy put sounds really fancy.

I’m giving you a recipe but I suggested tasting it and adding more of less of the ingredients to taste

2 types of vodka (winner) plus the always fancy sounding elderflower cordial are amongst the ingredients

Pear and Vanilla Vodka Granita with sweetened lemon scented cream recipe adapted from Joy The Baker Cook Book

2 cups warm water

70ml of pear vodka

30ml of vanilla vodka

50 ml elderflower cordial

30ml lemon juice

1/2 tsp sugar

1 1/2 cups cream

3 tbls sugar

1 tsp lemon zest

In a glass bowl dissolve sugar in water, leave to cool for a bit

Add vodkas, elderflower cordial and lemon juice, mix taste and adjust if required.

Put in freezer, after 1 hour take out and scrape and break up with a fork (what you don’t want to happen is for it to freeze into a solid mass, which is probably unlikely with all the vodka), put back in freezer. After 30 mins take out and scrap with fork again. Leave 3-4 hours until frozen into flaky crystals.

Once it’s all frozen  and flaky, it can stay like this for a few day.

When ready to serve, put sugar into mortar and pestle with lemon zest, lightly pound together to release oils form lemon.

Whipped cream for 1 min, then add sugar, keep whipping until peaks form.

fill glasses with granita, and top with dollop of lemon scented cream.

Enjoy on a hot night.