guest post: dad's chocolate ice cream

Dictated by the great ice cream Kahuna himself. Editor's note: we have an electric bucket style ice cream maker like this:


that works really well. Previous attempts at using an "indoor style" freeze-the-bucket ice cream maker led to ice cream that never really set. If you are young and urban and ice-cream-maker-less, David Lebovitz has a great write up about how to make ice cream without one here. Note well that this recipe makes a ridiculous amount of ice cream. If you want a less ridiculous amount of ice cream, half it.


CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM

1 quart half and half
1 quart heavy cream
2 cups sugar
2 tsps vanilla
8 egg yolks
cocoa powder (always Ghiradelli, here)

Scald the half and half and set aside. If a thin layer of you know, stuff forms, remove it with a wooden spoon. Whisk the egg yolks until they become pale yellow. Add the sugar to the yolks. Slowly add the scalded half and half, a little at a time to the yolk/sugar mix. It is important to do this tempering very slowly so that the eggs are not cooked. This happened once when I added the whole quart at once but if you go slowly, there won't be a problem. Now add the chocolate. Our family goes by the color rather than scientific measurement. We add enough chocolate to produce a light brown color. But it's all in the tasting. When the flavor is exactly what we like, we have achieved our goal. We like it not quite as chocolatey as hot chocolate. It tastes kind of like a Frosty.

Add the quart of heavy cream to the mixture. Now add the vanilla. At this point we add additional Hersheys syrup to make sure that it's chocolatey enough. The key to good ice cream is putting the mixture in the fridge for as long as possible. Overnight yields excellent results because the colder the mixture, the less time is required in the ice cream maker. The result is a creamier ice cream.



At this point, transfer the cold mixture to your favorite ice cream maker.



When the ice cream is done, we consume some of it right away in a soft-serve consistency. The rest we place in plastic containers and put in the freezer where in an hour or two you have a consistency of hard ice cream.