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Coconut Snowballs
This frozen treat is easy to make and will please any coconut–lover or those nostalgic for a 1950s dessert classic.
This recipe is inspired by a 1950s holiday dessert called the “flaming ice cream snowballs”, which was made by Foremost Dairy Foods in the United States. It consisted of a scoop of ice cream covered in icing and coconut and topped with red and green frosting in the shape of a holly. A red candle was placed in each snowball.
I’m fascinated by 1950s desserts. Many of them used packaged, ready-made ingredients. At the time, processed foods were considered expensive, luxury items and using them to make a dessert was something of a status symbol. Food product companies published marketing materials and cooking booklets to promote their products or made specialty items to market a modern, aspirational lifestyle.
Recipe below.
This recipe is inspired by a 1950s holiday dessert called the “flaming ice cream snowballs”, which was made by Foremost Dairy Foods in the United States. It consisted of a scoop of ice cream covered in icing and coconut and topped with red and green frosting in the shape of a holly. A red candle was placed in each snowball.
I’m fascinated by 1950s desserts. Many of them used packaged, ready-made ingredients. At the time, processed foods were considered expensive, luxury items and using them to make a dessert was something of a status symbol. Food product companies published marketing materials and cooking booklets to promote their products or made specialty items to market a modern, aspirational lifestyle.
Recipe below.
More Details
Coconut Snowballs
Preparation time 10 minutes (plus time to make the sauce and to chill the snowballs)
Bake time 0 minutes
Makes 5 servings
Ingredients
- 450 milliliters (15 fluid ounces or about 1 pint) vanilla ice cream
- 90 grams (1 cup) unsweetened, desiccated coconut*
- ½ recipe of Raspberry Sauce
* Toast the coconut for added flavor.
Method
- Measure all of the ingredients.
- Make the raspberry sauce as per the recipe. Let it cool to room temperature before using.
- While the sauce is cooling, place the coconut in a shallow bowl. Measure out 5 scoops of ice cream from the container (each should be about 90 grams / 3 ounces) and one-by-one toss into the coconut. The ice cream should still be very firm. Using a fork or your fingers, gently roll the ice cream in the coconut to coat and to help shape it into a ball.
- Transfer the coconut-covered ice cream to a parchment lined container, cover and place in the freezer for 30 minutes until firm. If you do not line your container with parchment, the snowballs will stick to the bottom.
- To serve, spoon about 2 tablespoons (about 30 grams) of raspberry sauce into 5 dessert dishes. Place a snowball in each dish. Store leftover raspberry sauce in an air-tight container in the refrigerator for up to a week.
- Serve snowballs immediately.
For more information about the phenomenon of the 1950s flaming ice cream snowballs, see this blog post by Nordic Blue and the magazine advertisement below.
Published: 14 January 2022
