VEGAN MANGO AND COCONUT FLOAT (V+, P, GF, GRF, NF, CHF)
Hi everyone! If you're here for the light, refreshing and fun vegan mango coconut float recipe, please scroll down to the end of the blog post. You'll find the yummy recipe there. If you're happy to read me going on about my holiday and my family, please read on and get to the recipe later.
As you read this post I'm either at the airport, perhaps I'm even on a plane high up in the sky or maybe I've already landed in my first destination. Either way, I won't be in London. In fact I won't be in London for the next 6 weeks (eek!). Needless to say I'm excited and not just because it's a holiday and a nice long one too. Nope, it's more than that. Actually it's really all about my son. He's just finished his first year in school and with me being so busy over the last 12 months, we've not seen each other as much as we did before he was in full-time education. So, I though it was worth making the most of the school holidays and spending the entire time together.
During the first week of our journey, we will be on the gorgeous island of Curaçao which forms part of the Dutch Antilles. Curaçao has the most beautiful beaches I know and it's also the place my mother is originally from meaning that part of my roots as well as my son's roots are from this stunning little country too.
When I was a child growing up in the Netherlands and subsequently Germany, my mother really wanted me to know where my ancestors came from and so we often visited Curaçao, probably about once a year or once every other year. I have so many fond memories of time spent there and the frequent trips across the Atlantic meant that I got to know and love my heritage and culture tremendously.
I very much want my son to know where his ancestry comes from too. I want him to feel the soil of Curaçao under his bare feet and breath in that incredible, fresh island air. So off we go to spend 1 amazing week with some of my favourite cousins and their children, to live island life to the full and visit as many beaches as we can in the space of 7 days. After that we set off again, but more about that another day ;)
What will this mean for the blog? The honest answer is I don't know. I do know that I should have prepared my bi-weekly blog posts well in advance and have them all nicely lined up for you. But the truth is, I don't because I didn't have a minute's time to do anything other than run around like a headless chicken (sorry, not the best metaphor for a plant-based food blog) putting everything in place to make this trip possible.
However, I am taking my camera and phone with me and hope I will have the opportunity to cook some food, take some photos and share some awesome recipes with you all over the coming weeks. But, I'm not going to stress about it too much cuz what will be will be.
Now, I may not be able to cook as much as I normally do and might not have any recipes to share on the blog as a consequence, but I am really hopeful that I can still share some of the plant-based foods I eat on my instagram gallery and facebook page and I would love it if you joined me for the ride.
But hey, enough bragging about my big trip, let's talk about this Caribbean treat of a recipe instead shall we?
The idea of creating a 'healthier' plant-based float came after seeing this stunning one from The Bojon Gourmet, Snixy Kitchen and Honestly Yum. It's SO much fun right? Because it's been super hot in London, I needed something to cool me down AND I wanted to get into the island spirit meaning that this recipe seemed like the perfect blog post to share this week. I can modestly say it is as delicious as it looks and super easy to put together. I hope you enjoy it and thanks so much for reading everyone!
VEGAN MANGO AND COCONUT FLOAT (V+, P, GF, NF, ChF, GrF)
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Cooling Time: 20 minutes + 2 hours
Serves: 1 +
Ingredients for the mango sorbet:
500g/1lbs chunks of frozen (organic) mango
a handful of dried mango (optional)
1-2 tbs of coconut sugar (optional, see more details below)
Instructions for making the mango sorbet:
Place the frozen mango chunks and sugar into a high speed blender (I use the vitamix) and blend until smooth with an ice-cream-like consistency. Scoop out the blended mango and place into a freezable container . Mix in the dried mango pieces, distributing the pieces evenly. Place the container with the mango sorbet into the freezer for about 20 minutes as it may but just too soft to serve after coming out of the blender.
After 10-20 minutes it should be just right. If it's still too soft, leave for another 15 minutes or so. If it's too hard, let it stand on the counter for 5 minutes (or longer if need be) until you can comfortable scoop out 3 scoops to use for this recipe, which you put into a tall glass, ready for the frothy coconut milk.
IMPORTANT: Please note that this recipe will make more than you need to make just 1 float (i.e. you can easily serve 5-6 people with this amount of sorbet), but it's great to have some extra and just make a large batch in 1 go.
Tip 1: Whether you use coconut sugar or any other sugar really depends on how sweet your fruit is to start off with. For the cherry sorbet we make, we don't use any sugar as the frozen cherries are sweet enough. But in our case the mango wasn't.
Tip 2: You can also use this mango nice cream recipe if you like.
Tip 3: I wouldn't call coconut sugar healthy, but it's certainly a better option than regular table sugar. For example, in contrast to regular sugar it contains some iron, zinc, calcium and potassium. But remember, it's still sugar!
Ingredients for the frothy coconut milk:
1 can of coconut milk (400g/400ml)
1-2 tbs of maple syrup
Instruction for making the frothy coconut milk:
Place the can of coconut milk in the fridge for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight to allow the creamy part of the coconut milk to separate from the more watery part. Then open the can and ensure that you only use the creamy part. Drain the watery part away, though if a tiny bit gets mixed into the creamy part it's not the end of the world in the case of this recipe.
Mix in 1 tablespoon of maple syrup. Taste for sweetness, if you are happy with it (as we were) then leave it at that, if not, add another tablespoon of maple syrup. Mix with a hand held mixer until the coconut milk becomes nice and frothy, about 10 minutes or so. Then pour the frothy coconut milk over the 3 scoops of mango sorbet and serve with a straw and spoon. YUM!
Tip 1: We used some physalis fruit and edible flowers from the garden to garnish, but it's completely optional.
Tip 2: This coconut milk is enough for 1 float which we ate between the three of us. So in short, this one's for sharing :)
Looking for more sweet treats? Just press here and enjoy.