Chocolate Velvet Ice Cream
I got an ice cream maker for Chanukkah!!!
Definitely the best toy I’ve gotten in years. I started with a few simple recipes, but I had my eye on this one from the outset. Just look at these reviews! (Yeah, I know. With three egg yolks, a cup and a half of heavy cream, and two kinds of chocolate, it would be sad if it didn’t earn four forks. But still.) Then I saw that this month’s Sugar High Friday theme was “chocoalte by brand.” It was beshert.
Unfortunately, I missed the SHF deadline for posting. No matter. The brands of chocolate that I used aren’t unusual, but they were new to me. Between budgetary concerns, having a lousy supermarket and no car, and the frequent need to keep things parve, I use Shaw’s cocoa powder and Hershey’s unsweetened baking chocolate most of the time. This was my chance to try something better.
(Before I go on, a plug: if you like making desserts, you really must visit this month’s SHF. Not every brand of chocolate reviewed is kosher, of course, but there are over 100 amazing-looking recipes.)
The Cocoa:
The recipe calls for Dutch-process cocoa, which is alkalized, giving it a darker color and removing some of its natural bitterness. I had heard a lot about Dutch-process cocoa, but I’d never used it. (See above, about the supermarket and the car.) Just recently, I’d seen the America’s Test Kitchen’s German chocolate cake episode, in which they (surprisingly) chose Hershey’s Dutch cocoa as their favorite “supermarket” brand, so I figured that would be my first choice. When I managed to find a local yuppie shop that carried Dutch cocoa, however, they had only one brand, tucked away in the coffee and tea aisle. It was Droste, which I figured couldn’t be too bad, seeing as it’s actually Dutch. (It’s also certified kosher for Passover by Circle-K.) When I got home, I checked the America’s Test Kitchen website and discovered that Hershey’s has changed their formula, and the new favorite is Droste. What do you know?
Droste is darker than the cocoa I usually use, and it has a richer, more “chocolatey” aroma. In addition to the ice cream, I tried it in hot cocoa, and it did make a somewhat smoother-tasting drink. It cost nearly three times what I’m used to paying, though, so I will probably save it for special occasions.
The Chocolate:
I bought two varieties of bittersweet chocolate: Ghiradelli 60% Cacao and Perugina (both OU-D). There was no comparison: Ghiradelli won my personal taste test by a landslide. It has a rich, complex flavor without being too bitter, where Perugina is just plain flat. (America’s Test Kitchen seems to agree.) They may call it a baking bar, but it’s actually some of the best chocolate I’ve eaten, all by itself. It’s a good thing I bought it the night I started making the ice cream, or there would have been no ice cream.
The Recipe:
It’s a little more work than the simplest ice cream recipes out there, but definitely not too elaborate as desserts go. It does require some advance planning, though, as the custard has to be made the night before, and the ice cream needs some time in the freezer to harden. You do not need a candy thermometer (though I’m sure that’s a fun toy, too); 170 degrees Farenheit is the temperature at which custard coats a wooden spoon.
One thing it would have helped me to know: When a cream-based mixture starts to boil, it foams up to about three times its volume very quickly. The volume goes down as soon as you stir it, but I wasn’t prepared. I actually considered changing the name of the flavor to “chocolate explosion,” because that’s what it looked like had happened in the kitchen by the time I was done.
The Results:
Like I said: Three egg yolks, a cup and a half of cream, and two kinds of chocolate — how do you think it tasted???
As some of the commenters mention, it doesn’t have a traditional ice cream texture, exactly. After five or six hours in the freezer it was more like frozen custard or chocolate mousse. The next day it was more like fudge, or a really good brownie in ice cream form. A little whipped cream was a terriffic complement.
Afterthoughts:
The most common question that I get about dairy recipes is, “do you think it could be made parve?” My usual answer is, “yes, but I wouldn’t recommend it.” This time, I’m actually not sure. The dark chocolate flavor was so intense that it might be possible to replace the dairy with something else and end up with nearly as good a product. I may try it eventually, but not just yet. I have my eye on this recipe for my next parve dessert.
Good thing I have that Droste cocoa.
I have made this recipe once or twice and agree that it is amazing. By the way, I used store brand cocoa.
I have been tempted to make it but not freeze, just serving it as chocolate mousse.
By the way, I used store brand cocoa.
I imagine that this would be great with any cocoa. I do think the good-quality bittersweet chocolate made a difference, though.
I have been tempted to make it but not freeze, just serving it as chocolate mousse.
I think it would be more like custard than mousse. You could probably make it more mousse-like by setting aside half the cream, whipping it, and then folding it into the custard mixture after it cooled. Personally, I’m much too excited about my ice cream maker to consider that sort of adaptation, though.
Trader Joe’s sells a decent cocoa powder under their store brand.
That looks tasty.
Chocolate sorbet with Market Basket brand cocoa is pretty rich already, although it does have a detectably bitter undertone — does Dutch process not have that?
(Btw, all pure cocoa is KLP without hashgacha.)
ELF, thanks for turning me on to SHF! I hope to use SHF #10, which is honey, for the meal I’m planning for Tu b’Shvat — I want to hit all seven species, and the best I’d been able to come up with for honey thus far was a Fishbein fig salad with honey dressing.
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I tried posting something along these lines earlier in the week, but for some reason it didn’t go up:
1) As an FYI on ice cream machine kashrus, we were told that so long as the ice cream machine is cleaned with cold/luke warm water, there is no problem using it for both dairy and pareve, and that the pareve ice creams/sorbets can be served off of meat dishes. (According to my sister-in-law, there is at least one opinion holding that if you store dairy in the basin for more than 24 hours, the basin becomes dairy. While this isn’t the majority’s stance, we try to clean our basin within 24 hours to avoid any issues with this opinion.)
2) No kitchen with an ice cream maker is complete without a copy of Ben & Jerry’s cookbook, available at Amazon.com for $9.95. It has a nice mix of classic B&J flavors, including Heath Bar Crunch and Cherry Garcia, unmarketed/retired flavors, and sections on sorbet (great for Shabbos), dessert sauces, baked goods, chocolate ice cream, and more.
Jill:
I’ve seen TJ’s, but I’m pretty satisfied with Shaw’s for non-alkalized cocoa.
Janet:
I haven’t had MB sorbet. Is it parve? I made some chocolate sorbet recently with Droste cocoa. It was slightly bitter, and a bit gritty. (You can read my review of the recipe here, under “navelofwine.”) I will probably try this recipe next; it’s made with bittersweet chocolate rather than cocoa.
Btw, all pure cocoa is KLP without hashgacha.
Do you know whether this is true of alkalized (Dutch-process) cocoa?
Meredith wrote:
ELF, thanks for turning me on to SHF!
I’m glad that someone else at KB likes it, given my recent obsession :)
Thanks for posting about the kashrut status of ice cream makers. I was going to raise the subject myself, but I didn’t feel like starting a controversy.
No kitchen with an ice cream maker is complete without a copy of Ben & Jerry’s cookbook
Hmm… Thanks for the tip…
When I was on a raw vegan diet, I made carob coconut pudding (using carob powder instead of chocolate, since chocolate is a cooked food and was not acceptable for the raw diet). Now that I’m off that diet, I could use cocoa powder. The use of coconut is a possible answer to replacing dairy.
Meat from 4 young coconuts
1 - 2 cups of water from the coconuts, depending on the amount of meat (use the rest for something else)
2 inches vanilla bean (Vanilla extract is not a suitable substitute, since it contains alcohol which is not boiled off, as it usually is in cooking.)
½ c raw carob powder
14 large medjool dates with pits removed
Blend up the water, vanilla and carob. Then blend in the dates. Finally blend in the coconut meat.
I’m not kosher, but the raw vegan diet is automatically kosher, since there is neither milk nor meat. That makes the diet so debilitating that my wife and I had to give it up.
Interesting recipe, but I haven’t figured out how to open a coconut without making an enormous mess. Any tips?
You need a machete and even then, it usually makes a mess. :-)