Saturday, August 1, 2009

Dark Chocolate Mint Ice Cream




I've deemed this the summer of ice cream. I've had my small Panasonic ice cream maker for years after getting it on sale at Amazon for $15. This is the first year I've really used it though, and definitely the first time I've made ice cream in it.

As I said before, Dave's favorite is mint chocolate chip, so when I wanted to make another batch of ice cream, I decided to flip the combination and make a dark chocolate ice cream with mint flavoring. This was the best batch yet!

I usually prefer a non-custard base ice cream, but for some reason this combination worked. It only includes three egg yolks and it was just enough to make it nice and creamy without adding any elasticity that you see at Cold Stone or such.

INGREDIENTS

1 cups half-and-half
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened dark chocolate cocoa
3 large egg yolks
1 cups heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract

DIRECTIONS

  1. Heat half-and-half and sugar over low heat just until sugar dissolves. Add dark chocolate cocoa and stir until incorporated.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat egg yolks and heavy cream until yolks are pale yellow and slightly thick.

  3. Temper the egg yolks by slowly drizzling in 1/4 cups of hot half-and-half mixture, whisking constantly. Pour the egg yolks into hot half-and-half and cook over low to medium-low heat until it thickens. Add 1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract.
    Chill mixture completely, then freeze in an ice cream maker following the manufacturer’s directions. For best results, transfer to a lidded container and freeze overnight.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are speakin' my language. I'm definitely going to try this!

Molly Jean said...

Whoa, for $15 I would invest in an ice cream maker too! What a deal!