Monday, July 11, 2011

I Scream for Ice Cream!

Odd as it may seem, I don't like chocolate ice cream. But I do love my husband, so I decided to indulge his craving last night. While I was in Santa Barbara last weekend, Bill went on a Tour d'Chocolate Custard. I'm not sure what inspired it, but I believe he settled on Gille's as his favorite. So obviously, I had to show him that I could do it just as well.

For those of you who aren't familiar with frozen custard, you should be ashamed. No, seriously, I understand. It's got to be a Midwest thing, as I had never heard of it before moving to Milwaukee. True story: When Nicole and I first moved here and saw signs for frozen custard everywhere, she actually called Kopp's and asked what it was. And they hung up on her. Needless to say, I've forgiven them their rudeness!

The difference between frozen custard and ice cream deserves a whole post, so I'll save that for later. But for now, suffice to say that last night I made a chocolate ice cream every bit as good as Kopp's custard (if not as good as Gille's).

I'm not sure how useful this recipe will be, since it requires the Cuisinart Pure Indulgence Ice Cream Maker, but I'll post it anyway, along with the craving-inducing step-by-step photos.

Chocolate Toffee Ice Cream
Ingredients:
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups whole milk
3 1/4 cups heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup chocolate-covered Heath Bar pieces

Directions:
In a medium bowl, combine cocoa and sugars. Stir to combine.


Add milk and beat with a hand mixer until combined, 1 to 2 minutes. Stir in heavy cream and vanilla.


Turn on the machine and pour mixture into freezer bowl.


Let mix until thickened, about 30 minutes. Five minutes before ice cream is done mixing, add Heath Bar pieces through the top. Allow to finish mixing.


Ice cream will be soft and creamy (just the way I like it!). For a firmer consistency, place in freezer for at least 2 hours (though I'm not sure why you would want to do that because when I pull it out of the freezer I let my ice cream sit on the counter for at least 15 minutes before I dig in, just to soften it up!).


Remember how I said I don't like chocolate ice cream? This may have changed my mind. It was deliciously rich and decadent, almost like a spoonful of truffle. I should have gone a bit heavier with the Heath Bar because they weren't laced evenly throughout. But other than that, I can find absolutely nothing wrong with this ice cream. I even found myself thinking about this ice cream all day long ... which makes it a good thing that we had a nice amount of leftovers!

I'm so pumped to try other flavors .. I'm thinking either strawberry or peaches and cream this weekend! And then .. onto frozen custard!

5 comments:

  1. Wow, that sounds fantastic... and I am totally in if you ever do a fruit version :)

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  2. If I had to rank favorites among your posts, this one would definitely be near the very top. I laughed for real at the story about Nicole's call :p

    I've always liked chocolate ice cream, but not as much as vanilla, dulce de leche, etc. And it only took trying a million different ones to convince me that it can, in fact, be just as good. This ice cream looks so RICH.. just the way it should be! I don't think there's any grocery store brand that I recall that is simply chocolate and toffee pieces. You might need to send me a pint of this via magic mail of some sort lol. I can't wait to see how your custard turns out :)

    BTW- I happened to see the Five Ingredient show on Food Network the other day and she was making maple ice cream with bacon praline.. insane! But it looked so good.

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  3. Tiff, you should come be a taste tester when I try gelato or frozen yogurt :)

    And Michelle, I'm so up for that maple-bacon-praline flavor! I need to look it up. I'm only going to keep up these tame flavors for so long before I decide to get crazy and adventurous :)

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  4. Also, I'd just like to point out that my husband left his first-ever comment on my blog. Nice of him to stop by! Guess it just goes to show how good this ice cream really was :) Right, honey?

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  5. Wait, how come other people can leave comments and I can't. I love ice cream!

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