Black Sapote ice-cream …

Black Sapote Ice Cream (or Mousse)
(
read in conjunction with my previous post on harvesting Black Sapote)

Because Black Sapotes contain useful quantities of Vitamin C, Vitamin A, Potassium, Fibre, Calcium, Phosphorus and Iron and zero fat, they make a good base for a dessert. That is, until … you start adding naughty things.

This is an adaptable recipe depending upon your preference for yoghurt, sugar and flavourings. If you don’t have enough Black Sapote flesh, you can bulk it up with very ripe banana.  If you don’t want to use coconut sugar, you can use another sugar.  You virtually can’t go wrong.

Basic Ingredients

220 ml/1cup yoghurt of your choice
220 ml/1 cup of ripe sapote pulp (15-20 fruit depending upon size)
50-100 g coconut sugar – or sugar of your choice
30g good quality cocoa or cacao powder
1 tsp cinnamon
½  tsp nutmeg

Scoop out the seeds and the pith from the middle of the sapote. Discard. Then scoop out the flesh making sure you don’t include any skin, and purée in a food processor until completely smooth.

Add the yoghurt, sugar, cocoa, cinnamon and nutmeg and process again until completely combined. (you can add a ripe banana here if you like)

Taste and adjust sugar – remembering that freezing intensifies the flavour.

Place in the fridge to chill for about 30 minutes, and to allow the sugar to dissolve.

Process in your ice-cream maker for 10-20 minutes according to directions. If you don’t have an ice-cream maker you can just eat it like a mousse.  It’s delicious either way.

And here are a couple of other flavour ideas:

  • Add a shot of espresso and/or a shot of your favourite liqueur right at the end of churning. Don’t add it at the beginning or the alcohol will stop the mixture from freezing. I added Frangelico which is my favourite liqueur.
  • Add a ripe banana to the sapote pulp when processing.
  • Add some home-made shredded mandarin or cumquats in syrup. There are plenty of recipes on the internet

My first Black Sapote fruit …

I’m only going to mention it one more time … we had the summer from HELL. But then the weather turned cooler, we had a minor flood and everything returned to normal.

Remarkably my garden survived on half the usual amount of water, which probably means that I have, in the past, overwatered. A lesson learnt.  Some more fragile plants succumbed whilst others like the Black Sapote toughed it out and even fruited tentatively for the first time.

Not knowing a lot about sapotes, I now realise that I harvested the fruit a little early. Instead of taking 7-10 days to turn black, it took nearly a month. And I wasted a few by cutting them open prematurely.  You pick the fruit whilst still green but slightly yellow, and when the calix starts to lift. Then you have to wait until the whole fruit turns black and feels mushy all over when you squeeze it – in fact when it reaches the stage that you would normally throw fruit in the compost – it’s perfect!

As each fruit ripened, I scooped out the pulp and stored it in the freezer until I had enough to make a batch of ice-cream.

I will shortly be posting my recipe variations for Black Sapote ice-cream, or mousse for those of you who don’t have an ice-cream machine, or can’t be bothered waiting!