I’m making one of my favorite chocolate ice creams. This is a chocolate ganache ice cream that is simply easy to prepare. This recipe is great served as-is, but there are tons of mix-ins that you can add to increase the flavor. Fold in a ribbon of chocolate syrup after the ice cream is frozen, add a handful of chocolate chips, or even add a few roughly chopped chocolate sandwich cookies. This will double up the chocolate goodness. For the best chocolate ice cream, use the best chocolate you can find. Skip the chocolate chips or mass-market bars and choose a dark and a milk bar with the fewest ingredients you can find. Chocolate bars which have higher volumes of additives like sugar and cocoa butter which will change the composition of the ice cream.
Too much sugar and the ice cream won’t freeze well, and too much cocoa butter will make for grainy ice cream. Place your dark chocolate in a bowl and pour over it hot cream then leave it for a few minutes and then mix it. In a different bowl, break in your eggs yolks then add sugar and one and three-quarters cup of cocoa powder and beat that with a hand mixer until everything is well combined and soft. By now, the chocolate ganache is ready from the mixture of chocolate and hot cream. Simmer milk then add it to the beaten mixture of cocoa and sugar then quickly mix it so it doesn’t cook the eggs. Add that into your simmering milk and mix that well and you are going to cook that until it thickens and then you are going to pour that into the ganache mixture.
Once it thickens, pour it over the ganache. Continuously mix that until it starts to get dark then let that cool down before you put that in a refrigerator. You are going to place that for at least 12 hours in the fridge, not the freezer. You are going to pour that delicious dark chocolate batter in an ice cream maker and then set that at 25 minutes and let it just swirl the chocolate. Once it’s done, pour it in a container then into the freezer for another 12 hours until its completely frozen.
Ingredients;
- 1 1/2 ounces unsweetened cocoa powder, approximately 1/2 cup
- 3 cups half-and-half
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 8 large egg yolks
- 9 ounces sugar
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Instructions;
- Place the cocoa powder along with 1 cup of the half-and-half into a medium saucepan over medium heat and whisk to combine.
- Add the remaining half-and-half and the heavy cream.
- Bring the mixture just to a simmer, stirring occasionally, and remove from the heat.
- In a medium mixing bowl whisk the egg yolks until they lighten in color.
- Gradually add the sugar and whisk to combine. Temper the cream mixture into the eggs and sugar by gradually adding small amounts, until about 1/3 of the cream mixture has been added.
- Pour in the remainder and return the entire mixture to the saucepan and place over low heat.
- Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture thickens slightly and coats the back of a spoon and reaches 170 to 175 degrees F.
- Pour the mixture into a container and allow to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.
- Stir in the vanilla extract. Place the mixture into the refrigerator and once it is cool enough not to form condensation on the lid, cover and store for 4 to 8 hours or until the temperature reach 40 degrees F or below.
- Pour into an ice cream maker and process according to the manufacturer’s directions.
- This should take approximately 25 to 35 minutes.
- Serve as is for soft serve or freeze for another 3 to 4 hours to allow the ice cream to harden.
