Cardamom Vanilla Coconut Ice Cream with Bourbon Peach Swirl

Summer means peaches!  Flavorful, fragrant wonderful scrumptious fruits blushing yellow and pink...almost too beautiful to eat...but I can never help myself!  When I was young, all I was exposed to was the disgusting canned peaches in syrup...a far cry from the beautiful fruits that I now buy.  So, I did not like peaches much as a child...that was until I had the real thing, then I couldn't get enough of them, and ever since then I have looked forward to their season every year!  So since they started appearing a few weeks ago, I have been buying them by the dozens and scarfing them down just as is. But I realized that I haven't made a peach dessert yet this year, so I decided that now was a good time!  I had some over ripe ones on my counter, so I decided to incorporate them into some ice cream as a swirl!  I combined them with a bit of bourbon, and some vanilla and voila!  Delicious peach puree!  I wanted to use cardamom in my ice cream base, because I think it goes wonderfully with the peaches.  Coconut does as well, so I used my non-dairy coconut milk ice cream base and folded in some toasted coconut for texture!  Peach heaven is what I would call this ice cream!  I have never had anything like it before...it is not like any peach frozen yogurt I had growing up, but a hundred times better!  If you have some over ripe peaches, you should definately try this out! 

Cardamom Vanilla Coconut Ice Cream with Bourbon Peach Swirl

Swirl:

4 peaches, cut into medium dice

2 Tbsp Honey

1/4 cup bourbon

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

a pinch of sea salt

Ice Cream Base:

1 tsp cardamom

1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract

2 3/4 cups full fat coconut milk

1/2 cup honey

1/2 tsp sea salt

2 cups toasted coconut

To make swirl, heat peaches in a saucepan, and cook over medium heat until they are soft, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and add honey, bourbon, vanilla extract and sea salt. Cool to room temperature, then puree in a food processor until smooth. Place in the fridge to chill until very cold, preferrably overnight. To make ice cream, combine cardamom, coconut milk, honey, and vanilla extract and sea salt in a food processor, and process to blend. Chill ice cream base in the fridge until very cold. When chilled, pour the ice cream base mixture into an ice cream maker and process according to package directions (mine takes about an hour, and is still a little soupy like the consistency of a malt, but firms up in the freezer). When ice cream is done freezing, stir in toasted coconut, and pour half into a tupperware container. Then top with about a third the peaches and swirl slightly with a knife. Pour remaining ice cream into the container, and top with half the remaining peaches swirling with a knife. Reserve the remaining peaches for serving. Place ice cream in the freezer for at least a few hours, or preferrably overnight to ripen for best results. Serve with remaining peaches. Makes about 4+ cups of delicious ice cream!