Chocolate Ice Cream

Oh my goodness. 

This is basically the reason I keep trying to make macarons. Because without the promise of rich, creamy, custardy ice cream from the leftover yolks, it would just be depressing to make cracked, foot-less (feet-less?) meringue cookies. That still taste amazing, but for the foodie in me, I just want it to be pretty too, you know?

But let's talk about this. Somehow this ice cream manages to be simultaneously dark/rich and milky/creamy. It is so dang decadent.

The recipe hails from a cookbook I keep seeing around the blogosphere, Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz. It's apparently the ice cream bible, and I can attest to the greatness of his recipes.

I got it at the library. I'm pretty sure the checkout lady thought I was downright crazy when I checked out with Toy Story 3, a Carole King CD, a summer fluff (the quote on the cover says "[A] thoroughly enjoyable girlish romp") novel, and cookbooks focusing on ice cream, pie (recipe coming soon!!), and cheesecake, respectively. 

And I came out feeling like I had just gotten so much amazing stuff for free. One reason I absolutely love the library. 

P.S. The highlighted words in this post say: rich creamy custardy so dang decadent downright crazy free love. 

Food for thought. 

Chocolate Ice Cream

Yield: 1 quart

Ingredients:

2 cups heavy cream

3 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder (I didn't have it, so I just used Hershey's. Seemed fine, but it couldn't hurt to use Dutch-process)

5 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate (good quality makes all the difference!)

1 cup milk

¾ cup granulated sugar

Pinch of salt

5 large egg yolks

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Method:

1. Warm 1 cup of the cream with the cocoa powder in a medium saucepan, whisking to thoroughly blend the cocoa. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer at a very low boil for 30 seconds, whisking constantly. Remove from the heat and add the chopped chocolate, stirring until smooth. Then stir in the remaining 1 cup cream. Pour the mixture into a large bowl, scraping the saucepan as thoroughly as possible, and set a mesh strainer on top of the bowl.
2. Warm the milk, sugar, and salt in the same saucepan. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolk. Slowly pour the warm milk into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.
3. Stir the mixture constantly over the medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula (170°F on an instant-read thermometer). Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the chocolate mixture until smooth, then stir in the vanilla. Stir until cool over an ice bath.
4. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. (If the cold mixture is too thick to pour into your machine, whisk it vigorously to thin it out.)

Recipe from Brown Eyed Baker, the blog queen of ice cream.