Homemade chocolate ice cream

I think I got a little hooked on ice cream making after tasting my first batch a few weeks ago.  Homemade ice cream is so good!  I don't have an ice cream machine; I'm trying hard to hold out because if I had one, I picture myself churning out quarts of it with far too much frequency.  So this chocolate ice cream was again made without a machine, using that chill, freeze & stir method.

I've mentioned before that I'm a big fan of David Lebovitz.  His baking book, Ready for Dessert, may well be the best I've ever bought.  All of his recipes that I've tried just work and taste as good as he says (and you hope), with instructions that are simple and straightforward.  Right now, I'm completely enamored with his ice cream book, The Perfect Scoop, which not only has tons of recipes for ice cream, sorbets and granitas, but also for a variety of accompaniments from pralined nuts to chocolate sauce and profiteroles.  I hear he's working on a new cookbook, which makes me super excited.

If you make this particular chocolate ice cream, get ready for a rich, true chocolate experience.  Like the terrific vanilla ice cream, this one is also French-style, or custard based, made with egg yolks (as opposed to Philadelphia-style, which is made without eggs - something I'd like to try but may need an ice cream machine for).  Also made with cream, milk, cocoa powder, and a few ounces of dark chocolate, the result is creamy, rich ice cream where the chocolate really shines.

It reminded me of the amazing Berthillon ice cream we eat in Paris, where a small scoop of ice cream or sorbet goes a long way given the intensity of the flavors.  It also made me think of a time last summer when I shared a small container of chocolate ice cream from La Maison du Chocolat with my little one while we were at the mall (we do live in NJ).  We'd never had their ice cream before and when he tasted it, he told me it tasted like brownies!  I agreed with him and maybe that gives you an idea of what this ice cream tastes like because although the chocolate flavor in my home version isn't as complex as the container we had that day, it's that deep chocolate flavor that is distinctive from what we may buy at the supermarket. 

Quite probably like many of you, my love affair with ice cream goes way back.  As a kid, my sister and I loved to eat a particular brand of rocky road ice cream that was heavy on the almonds and light on the marshmallow swirl.  So when I was making this, I couldn't help taking some of the chocolate ice cream and mixing in some toasted almonds.  The combination of smoky almonds in chocolate ice cream is divine.  I reserved this little container (very convenient ice cream storage, by the way) to share with my hubby and we enjoyed it thoroughly.  Ice cream is a happy thing.

And Independence Day is just a couple of days away!  It is hot here in Jersey and the perfect time to enjoy an ice cream cone or two.  In Paris, ice cream shops like Berthillon use these slim, slightly elongated, cones to serve a small scoop of their ice cream.  It's pretty perfect so you can save room for other treats.  I'd take one of those if I could get one but this will due quite well for me.

Have a great July 4th holiday and I hope you have a helping or two of ice cream!  I know it'll put a smile on your face. 

I made ice cream (without a machine)!

I am very excited to show you my first batch of authentic homemade ice cream!

I made it by hand, without a machine, using the freeze and stir method described by David Lebovitz (whose recipes have yet to steer me wrong).  It sounded like the simplest option to me, somewhat similar to making granita.  And for my first endeavor, I stuck with a basic flavor, vanilla, and stirred in some dark chocolate at the end to make what's called "Stracciatela" (the Italian name for a vanilla based ice cream with small pieces of chocolate bits in it).

This isn't very eloquent but let me say that homemade ice cream is like "woah!"  It is some serious deliciousness and tastes a lot better than what you'd find in the freezer aisle.  In this case, I can really taste the pure vanilla flavor that comes from the fresh vanilla beans.  The vanilla ice cream is the star of the show but the bits of crunchy chocolate is a nice added bonus.  I love incorporating chocolate somehow into my dessert and I love having some crunch in my ice cream.  Is anybody else with me?

And I do love ice cream.  You probably know how I feel since I can't think of a single person I know who doesn't.  When I used to work in midtown, I'd sometimes take a walk during my lunch break and occasionally, I'd just grab an ice cream cone with mint chocolate chip ice cream for lunch while roaming around.  It made me very happy.  Nowadays, I may be better at portion control and no longer enjoy the soup bowl variety (those were the days!) but I still love myself some ice cream!

And that brings me to the fact that I've wanted to try making my own ice cream.  Just for fun.  I guess you just want to make things you love to eat.  I don't have an ice cream machine, however, and I really don't want one mainly because it would encourage too much ice cream making and eating on my part.  Secondly, I don't want to invest in another piece of equipment that I have no space for.  So if you're like me and interested in making a batch of ice cream without a machine, check out this post from thekitch.com which addresses that very question submitted by yours truly.

I was a little nervous about this ice cream when I was making it but in the end, my family and I agree that it came out great.  I had a nagging concern that maybe I didn't cook the custard long enough and for some reason, the ice cream didn't seem to firm up very well.  But I guess homemade ice cream doesn't firm up the way you might expect and you need to scoop it into a container and let it freeze further for several hours.  I did that and it turned out great in the end. 

Handmade ice cream done this way may not be as smooth and creamy in texture as the kind churned by machine but we have no complaints.  My son proclaimed it "really good" - eating the majority of the batch - and that makes me so happy.  I highly doubt I'll be able to resist taking another go at homemade ice cream before the summer's out.

Update (August 18, 2012):  I know it defeats the purpose of this post somewhat but I did, inevitably, buy an ice cream maker recently.  Here is this French-style vanilla ice cream churned by the ice cream maker.  The benefit to using the machine is clearly time savings and texture.  But both handmade and machine-churned taste delicious!