Lazy Sunday - Nancem Coconut Iced Lollies

Sometimes, simple is just better. Especially on a Sunday, when all you want to do is well, laze around. The weather has been quite unforgiving again of late. Blazing hot during the day, with soaring temperatures parching our throats and then typhoonal-grade winds and storms at night, wreaking havoc in my garden. On a hot and lazy Sunday such as this, it's just best not to think too hard about what food to cook. In fact, it's just best to eat out, which is what we do sometimes when the culinary inspiration runs thin.

I did make one exception, though. The youngest lovable monster in this house had been asking me to make iced lollies for a while, and I hadn't been too enthusiastic about the request because eating frozen stuff always has a tendency to exacerbate his asthma. Poor kid, he can't have his icecream and lick it with complete abandonment too. Such are the cards life dealt him.

Then there was the nancem from our garden. If you don't already know, nancem is hybrid of the nangka (jackfruit) and cempedak fruits. It looks very much like a nangka on the outside but tastes so much like the sweet, luscious cempedak. The individual yellow fruits inside were the size and shape of cempedak, but not as “heaty” as cempedak, more mild. I struggled to find a name for this hybrid until quite recently, because there wasn't much on Google and the fruit tree had been planted on our property way long before we'd moved into our house.

Well, like I said, there was the ripe nancem waiting on our kitchen counter, smelling so penetratingly, thickly sweet (I can't fully describe it) that it gave Diva D a headache - and not a joyful headache at that. Okay, I had to do something quick, and when our cute monster asked again about the iced lollies, I gave in. Yes, alright. He was going to have his iced lollies, but they will have to be nancem-flavored. Take it or leave it, kiddo!

Freshly de-molded, and a few seconds later!

The recipe is perfect for a laze-about Sunday, and the results... creamy, naturally sweetened and very fruity, flavorful, yellow iced lollies.

Namcem Coconut Iced Lollies
Makes: 8 iced lollies
Ingredients:
200g nancem flesh, remove seeds
100ml double cream
100ml coconut milk
50ml milk
1 tablespoon honey
 
Method:

1. Easy, just put all the ingredients in a blender and blend until the nancem is completely pureed and incorporated with the rest of the ingredients into a smooth, creamy liquid.

2. Pour mixture into the ice-lolly molds and freeze for about 4 hours or overnight. Halfway through the freezing process (when the mixture is already setting but still slightly slushy), insert wooden lolly sticks into the centre of the molds.

3. To de-mold, pour some hot water into a mug or deep container, dip the molds carefully for a few seconds and pull the ice lolly out by the stick. Consume immediately.