I dream of chocolate

I might have just made the best chocolate ice cream I have ever eaten. I might have to go vegan after today. Nothing will ever be as good as the ice cream I licked off my fingers as I scraped the last of the milk chocolate custard from the edges of my churn.

Sure, I'll get to the recipe -- that's why most of you are here, I imagine, especially during these days of social isolation that naturally result in more of us spending more time in the kitchen than usual -- but first, I feel you need a bit of context. You see, it's my boyfriend's birthday and he LOVES ice cream cake. And I don't mean fancy, high end ice cream cake. I mean grocery store ice cream cake. (Don't shake your head at me. He's awfully cute and charming, and in my defense I didn't know about his occasional habit of eating a half of an chocolate ice cream pie in a single sitting until after I was properly smitten. Luckily he bikes a lot to burn it off.)

So anyway, I was talking with my cousin a little while ago and mentioned that I wanted to try making an ice cream cake for Matt's birthday. Sonia is one of the best baker/confectioners on the planet, so when she suggested I check out some of the recipes on the Smitten Kitchen blog, I did. I believe I managed to find the most elaborate ice cream cake out there. It involves baking cookies and then crumbling them to make the base. And that was just the crust! Two different flavors of homemade frozen custard, from-scratch fudge sauce, freshly whipped cream... that woman is my kind of crazy.

I will spare you the gory details of me trying to secure things like 6 cups of heavy whipping cream in the midst of what seems like a run on all things baking at my local supermarket. Suffice to say, I got most of what i needed for the hot fudge sundae cake. It turned out pretty well, no?

Those are mini peanut butter cups on top. It is the only ingredient I didn't make from scratch. (I know, it seems like a cop out at the end, but did I tell you about the decimated baking aisle at Whole Foods? There was no chocolate to be found. As it was, I had to dip into my emergency chocolate stash at home to have enough for the fudge sauce.) Anyway, while I did have cherries at home to top the ice cream sundae cake, peanut butter cups seemed more Matt-like, and it's his birthday after all.

Thanks for sitting through that backstory. Or at least discreetly skimming through it to get to the recipe. Here it is. I suggest you take up a robust workout regimen before embarking on making this -- let's just say it's a bit rich. I've adapted it here so that it's just the chocolate ice cream part of the Smitten Kitchen recipe. 

Milk Chocolate Frozen Custard

(Makes 1 quart + an extra cup or two*)

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 3 Tablespoons cocoa powder
• 6-ish ounces milk chocolate pieces
• 1 1/4 cups whole milk
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• pinch of salt
• 6 egg yolks
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Put 1 cup of cream and the cocoa powder in a medium pot, 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 1/2 cups cream. Try to resist the urge to just start eating this chocolate cream base. The final product is worth the wait, I promise.

Warm the milk, sugar, and salt in another medium pot, then transfer to a spouted liquid measuring cup. Whisk together egg yolks in the cooled pot. Slowly pour in warm milk/sugar/salt mixture, whisking constantly. Cook mixture over medium-low heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom with a wooden spoon until the custard thickens enough to coat the back of the spoon.

Pour the custard through the strainer and whisk it into chocolate cream until smooth, then stir in the vanilla.

Chill in the fridge for a full day or overnight. You want it fully chilled before churning in your ice cream maker.

Churn your chilled chocolate custard according to the ice cream machine manufacturer's directions. In most cases, ice cream is churned for 30 minutes then transferred to a container to finish in freezer, but if you like soft serve grab your spoon and get in there after the ice cream thickens a bit.

Enjoy your homemade scoop of chocolate heaven!

(*If you are comparing my recipe to the original, you may notice I used more that half of the original custard base for the ice cream cake in the chocolate ice cream. What can I say, Matt and I prefer chocolate to vanilla ice cream. And I may have set aside about a cup and a half of chocolate ice cream for another surprise later.)