Coffee chocolate chip ice cream

Summer is all about ice cream!  Even if you're not making it yourself at home, you're thinking about it, buying it, going to your favorite ice cream parlor for some, and seeing plenty of reminders to eat more ice cream just about everywhere!  It was National Ice Cream Day a few days ago and while I'm not sure how these national food "holidays" get conjured up and though I'm pretty sure none of us needs an excuse to eat more ice cream in the summer, I'm totally game for the fun of it all.

For our part, I feel like we've been swimming in ice cream in the past month! I must buy more cream in the 3 summer months than I do the rest of the year combined. Each batch seems to disappear faster than the last, and I'm still buying and taking the kiddo out for ice cream on top of it.  Honestly, I might need to give my ice cream maker a break and take a short ice cream-making hiatus.  But before I do that, I made this batch of coffee chocolate chip ice cream.  I had to try something new and this is what I picked.

The coffee ice cream base is from David Lebovitz (so you know it's good).  Unlike his Vietnamese coffee ice cream, which uses brewed coffee and condensed milk, this coffee ice cream gets its flavor from whole coffee beans, as milk and cream are steeped in it for about an hour.  It yields a clear, strong coffee flavor that's bound to satisfy the coffee lover.  And with an equal ratio of cream to milk, and a good 5 egg yolks in the custard, the texture is nice and creamy.

Of course, I added chocolate chips because to me, coffee chocolate chip ice cream is better than plain coffee ice cream in most circumstances.  If you feel the same, add 4 ounces of warm melted chocolate right at the last minute of churning like I did.  Pour the chocolate in a thin steady stream into the ice cream at the last moment of churning and it will turn into little lacy wisps of chocolate flakes (though I sure don't mind when I end up with a few chunks here and there) running throughout the ice cream.  

Some people love their ice cream plain and smooth while I'm all for texture and extra add-ins, particularly when it involves chocolate and/or nuts!  Whatever you prefer, hope you are cooling down with a sweet scoop every now and then this summer!  


If you'd like to cool off with this homemade coffee chocolate chip ice cream, start with coffee beans.  You'll need 1 1/2 cups of whole beans (that equates to a little under 4 oz.); I used decaf.  The beans go into a pan with the milk, 1/2 cup of cream, sugar and salt.  Once warmed over the stove, cover the pan and let the mixture steep at room temperature for 1 hour.

After the hour, rewarm the mixture and temper 5 egg yolks by slowly pouring and whisking this coffee mixture (including the coffee beans) into it.  Then, scrape it all back into the pan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens and coats the back of the spatula.  

To finish the custard, the mixture is strained into a bowl containing the remaining 1 cup of cream.  Use your spatula to press down on the beans to extract as much of the coffee flavor from them as you can.  Stir in a little vanilla extract and some finely ground coffee, and the custard base is ready to be chilled.  

Churn it as is for coffee ice cream, but for coffee chocolate chip ice cream, I melted 4 ounces of semisweet chocolate (you can use 4-5 ounces and either semisweet or bittersweet chocolate).  I learned this technique of making "stracciatella", which here refers to ice cream/gelato with chocolate "flakes", from The Perfect Scoop.  It is the Italian method of pouring warm, melted chocolate into cold ice cream so that it naturally breaks up into streaks or flakes into your ice cream or gelato.  According to David Lebovitz, the trick is to pour the chocolate in a very thin stream (transfer it to a measuring cup for easier pouring) during the very last minute of churning.  And also to try to pour it into the ice cream, not the dasher.  

And there we have it...Coffee Chocolate Chip Ice Cream, made...and eaten (we are all out)!

Now on the subject of summer and ice cream, not only have I been churning out batches of ice cream, I've been making hot fudge sauce, like this recipe from Smitten Kitchen that I had to try recently...

...and where there's ice cream and hot fudge, there must be brownies (supporting evidence here)!  I've made a few batches lately, though in fairness, I make these cocoa brownies all the time, no matter the season!

Brownies + ice cream + hot fudge sauce = a happy, happy equation!  Around here, we enjoy it a lot.    

Recipe:

Coffee Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

Adapted from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz

- Makes about 1 quart - 

1 1/2 cups (375ml) whole milk

3/4 cup (150g) sugar

1 1/2 cups (125g) whole coffee beans

Pinch of salt

1 1/2 cups (375 ml) heavy cream

5 large egg yolks

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon finely ground coffee (you can push coffee grounds through a fine mesh sieve)

4 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

Warm the milk, sugar, whole coffee beans, salt, and 1/2 cup of the cream in a medium saucepan.  Once warm, cover the pan with a lid, remove from the heat and let steep at room temperature for 1 hour.

Rewarm the coffee-infused milk mixture.  Pour remaining 1 cup cream into a large bowl and set a mesh strainer on top.  Set nearby.  

In a separate medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks together.  Temper the yolks by slowly pouring the warm coffee mixture (with the coffee beans) into them, whisking constantly.  Then scrape the mixture back into the saucepan and stir constantly over medium heat until it thickens and coats the spatula.  Pour the custard through the strainer and stir in into the cream.  Press the coffee beans into the strainer to extract as much of the coffee flavor as you can.  Discard the beans.  Stir in vanilla and finely ground coffee.  Cool over an ice bath, then chill thoroughly in the refrigerator before churning.  

Churn ice cream according to ice cream maker's manufacturer instructions.  Once started, melt chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Transfer the chocolate to a measuring cup (for easier pouring).  In the last possible moment of churning, add the chocolate by drizzling a very thin stream of the warm chocolate into the ice cream as it turns (this makes for thin chocolate flakes).  Aim the chocolate into the ice cream as opposed to the dasher.  [Alternatively, if the chocolate clings too much to the dasher, you can remove the ice cream from the machine, drizzle the chocolate into it as you layer it into a storage container, breaking up any chunks as you stir. Regardless, there's no need to stress since bigger chunks of chocolate are just as good as thin flakes of chocolate in my book!]