Dessert in the Firefly universe is an interesting affair, to say the least. As intergalactic smugglers, the crew of Serenity is used to simple, tinned food, so when they get a chance for something sweet, they go all-out.
In the episode “The Message” we see River eating an “ice planet”—a large ball of what appears to be ice cream extended on a string attached to a stick. It’s problematic to eat, but it sure looks delicious! I knew I wanted it to be my Firefly dessert.
Since we’re never given a description of the ingredients, I had to get inventive. Since the surface of the ball is coarse instead of smooth, I figured it had been coated in something, and shredded coconut sounded like a delicious pairing. And since the balls were white, I figured they were probably made with vanilla ice cream. I didn’t want plain vanilla for the center, though, so I thought it would be fun to toast some marshmallows and mix them in.
Voila! Dessert is served. 🙂
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Ice Planets: An AWR Original Recipe!
“My food is…problematic.”
— Serenity
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INGREDIENTS:
- 4-5 cups vanilla ice cream
- 10 jumbo marshmallows
- 2 cups shredded coconut
- You will also need 3 12-inch bamboo skewers, 51 inches of kitchen twine, and 3 toothpicks
Makes 3 ice planets
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INSTRUCTIONS:
- First, toast your marshmallows. To achieve the toasted taste in the ice cream, you’ll want to make sure the marshmallows are evenly toasted (soft and melty on the inside—not raw or completely dissolved) while still having a decent amount of blackened bits on the outside.
- Scoop 3 cups of ice cream into a blender with half your marshmallows. Cover the blender and pulse until the marshmallows are broken up and mostly distributed through the ice cream but not completely blended smooth.
- Add the rest of your marshmallows and another cup or two of ice cream. Pulse until you reach the same consistency as before (you may need to do some mixing with a spoon to push the new ingredients down to the bottom).
- Pour into a medium-sized bowl or Tupperware container. Cover and freeze for 1 1/2 hours or until solid.
- Pour your coconut onto a small plate. Use an ice cream scoop to shape your ice cream into 3 balls that are approximately 3 inches across. Roll each ball in coconut. Put the balls back into the bowl, re-cover, and freeze again until solid.
- Cut a length of 17-inch twine. Tie or tape one end of the twine to a bamboo skewer. Coil the other end of the twin across the length of a toothpick. Insert the wrapped toothpick all the way into the center of one of the ice cream balls.
- Repeat Step 6 for the remaining ice cream balls. In the end, you should have 3 balls suspended from sticks. Place on a baking sheet in the freezer to firm up.
- Serve immediately—before it melts!
Need more ice cream? Check out our other frozen desserts!
This is such a cool idea! I totally forgot about the ice planet, but now I remember. I need to try this!
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It’s sooo delicious—but hard to photograph! Every time I do something with ice cream, I always get super excited and then groan a little inside, because I know it’s going to be tough to do a photo shoot with a subject that keeps melting! XD
I can imagine!