This rich dark chocolate ice cream will cool you down and satisfy your sweet tooth this summer!
Chocolate ice cream, you guys. It combines two of my favorite things (chocolate and ice cream…duh). I will eat it any time of year, but particularly around this time it’s refreshing! This custard-based ice cream is super thick and rich, so it can also be a little heavy. I like to eat just one small scoop at a time.
I got this base recipe from the Ice Creamery Cookbook by Shelly Kaldunski (affiliate). I found it in Williams-Sonoma a few years ago, and my love for ice cream compelled me to buy it, even though I had no prior experience in ice cream. Since then, I’ve made a couple of ice creams, some with more success than others. A couple summers ago I even made a dairy-free cantaloupe soft serve-esque that was really good (but freezes really hard, so you have to let it sit out, hence the “soft” part). But I’ve never tried a custard-based ice cream before. So in the past, they kind of all just tasted like frozen cream (which…it was). This was the first time I felt like it was really real ice cream, just like you would get at a shop or the grocery store. I’m a little biased, but due to ingredients, I’d argue that mine is even better tasting! Also…it said I should strain it, and I didn’t, but mine was still smooth and not grainy! (Probably a factor of my chocolate choice)
We have a really basic ice cream maker (affiliate), so you may not have to do this if you have a fancy one, but the most important parts are to fully chill the canister (the part that holds the ice cream and also touches the ice and salt), and also make sure that the custard itself is very cold. I accomplished this by just refrigerating it overnight, although you could do it for as little as 5 hours, most likely.
Local Spotlight: For this recipe, I knew I had to use the couverture (chocolate callets or candy melts) from Glacier Confection. It melts easily, and you don’t have to chop it very finely to achieve great results. J came home each week from his last rotation with 18 eggs from one of the docs who has chickens, so we’re trying to move through them as quickly as possible, and I figured ice cream is a good way to use them up!
See how long this will last at your place! It didn’t hang around here long.
xxHillary
Dark Chocolate Ice Cream [V, GF]
Ingredients
- 1 pint 2 C. heavy cream
- 1 ½ C. whole milk
- 7 egg yolks
- ¾ C. sugar
- ¼ C. cocoa powder
- ¼ t. sea salt
- 8 oz of dark chocolate callets
- 2 t. vanilla extract
Instructions
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Chop chocolate into ¼ callets or smaller. Set aside.
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In a medium saucepan, combine cream and milk over medium-high heat, until it begins to simmer.
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In a bowl, combine egg yolks, sugar, cocoa powder and salt. Whisk until fluffy and doubled in size (a couple minutes).
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Remove saucepan from the heat and scoop out about 1 cup worth and add it into the egg mixture. Whisk until smooth.
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Pour this egg and cream mixture back into the saucepan with the rest of the egg mixture and whisk.
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Add saucepan back to the heat (medium), whisking constantly.
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Fold in the chocolate gradually into the saucepan. Stir until melted.
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Stir in vanilla.
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When the custard coats the back of a spoon (about 2 minutes of stirring), turn off the heat.
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Transfer custard to a preferred container to store in the refrigerator at least 5 hours (to overnight).
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Pour cold custard into an ice cream maker and prepare to the maker's instructions.
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Empty the canister into a freezer-safe storage container and place wax paper on the surface of the ice cream. Freeze until hard.
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Serve with flake salt for garnish.
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#enJOY!
1. That looks friggin delicious, and 2. They make cookbooks for icecream? HELLO. Yes please.
Right?! Now I want to try them allllll (the recipes in the book, that is)
RIGHT?! There’s a cookbook for everything.
I haven’t tried custard-based ice cream yet, either. But this dark chocolate ice cream looks so rich and heavenly… Pretty sure I already have waffle cones in the back of my pantry…