Christmas is a great time to make sweet treats, they are perfect to have to hand when friends come to visit or to package up nicely and give as gifts to teachers, loved ones and neighbours.

Today I’m joining the Christmas Treats Blog Hop and bringing you a really simple no fuss recipe for coconut ice. Coconut Ice was one of my mum’s favourite treats and this was the recipe she always used. It’s not strictly just a Christmas treat of course, I’m pretty sure I made it for her for her birthday and Mother’s Day as well as Christmas, but a little bag does make a perfect stocking filler gift or pops into a hamper of treats nicely.

I must start by confessing I’ve never actually tried this coconut ice, I don’t really like coconut! But this is a tried and tested family recipe that I’ve made all my life for other people. This time, my husband has been my taste tester as he is a big fan of all things coconut and he has given it the thumbs up.

Update: I’m now gathering that Coconut Ice is not a well known thing all around the world. It’s definitely a well known sweet treat here in Britain, so I did a quick bit of research which shows you also have it in South Africa, and a version of it in Australia and New Zealand. If you like coconut I would suggest giving it a try. It’s super easy and is always a big hit with all coconut lovers. You can tell your friends and family it’s a British delicacy!

No Fuss Coconut Ice Recipe

It really couldn’t be much easier to make, it’s ideal to get the kids in the kitchen making gifts as well as adults of course.

As well as the ingredients you will need:

mixing bowl
wooden spoon
rolling pin
extra icing/powdered sugar
baking parchment/greaseproof paper
star cutter - optional

No Fuss Coconut Ice

200g condensed milk

225g icing sugar / powdered sugar

175g desiccated coconut

red food colouring

I think the key to success with this recipe is to weigh your ingredients carefully, even a gram or two either way can put it right out. This is why I’ve not converted this to cups as I would do normally, I just don’t think it’s just accurate enough for this.

It also might seem a bit weird to weigh out a liquid (even though condensed milk is a very gloopy liquid) instead of measuring it in ml or fl oz. All I can say is that this works, so thinking of the premise “ain’t broke don’t fix it” I weigh my condensed milk in the bowl and it works well.

Beat the condensed milk and sugar together with the wooden spoon until it’s well incorporated. Add the desiccated coconut and mix. This is a very stiff mixture, don’t worry, that’s how it’s supposed to be. If you have a food mixer you could use it instead but honestly, it takes about 5 minutes to mix and it’s good for your arm muscles!

a mixing bowl with ingredients for coconut ice in it

Take half out into a seperate bowl and add a couple of drops of red food colouring. The easiest way to mix the food colouring in is to use your hands to squeeze and kneed it.

Dust your work surface with a little more icing sugar just to stop things sticking to it too much and take a handful of white mix and a handful of pink mix and roll each into a long sausage shape.

Squidge the 2 sausages together. You have 2 options from this point.

A) You can use the flat edge of a knife to press the sides into straight edges and then leave it to set in the fridge for a couple of hours. Once set you can slice into pieces in the traditional way.

B) Make stars like I have. To do this roll the squished together sausages lightly with the rolling pin. Cut out stars with your star cutter, getting the join between the 2 colours somewhere near the middle.

Place the stars on a piece of baking parchment and pop them in the fridge to set. The paper just stops them sticking to everything!

After a couple of hours, or even overnight if you are not in a rush, you can bag your coconut ice up. I put mine into little cellophane bags and tied then with a bow of ribbon. The coconut ice will keep for up to a month, I always keep it in the fridge but a day or two out of the fridge would be ok if you are giving it as a Christmas gift.

This mix made 100 stars but my star cutter is tiny, about 1” across and I rolled the coconut ice pretty thin. If your cutter is bigger or you roll the mix a little thicker you may get less.