Recipe: The Darkest Chocolate Ice Cream in the World

Go check out the blog here if you missed all the ever-so-exciting information I provided you with earlier!  If you can't be bothered to go read that over and you want to get right to the ice creamy deliciousness, just know that this is a slightly modified version (2% milk instead of whole milk, half-and-half instead of heavy cream) of Jeni's Ice Cream's Darkest Chocolate Ice Cream in the World.  Also, you'll see that I've broken it up a bit between the ice cream base and the chocolate component.  After you have the base, you can pretty much take it anywhere you want as far as flavors go.

Ingredients:

Ice Cream Base:

2 c. milk (I used 2%)

4 tsp. cornstarch

1 c. half-and-half (or heavy cream if you want)

1/2 c. sugar

2 tbsp. light corn syrup

1/4 tsp. kosher salt

3 tbsp. cream cheese, softened

Chocolatey Goodness:

1/2 c. unsweetened cocoa

1/2 c. brewed coffee

1/2 c. sugar

1-1/2 oz. bittersweet chocolate (I used semi-sweet, but I'd go with a higher percentage, darker chocolate the next time)

1. Make the ice cream base first: In a small bowl, stir together 1/4 cup milk and the cornstarch; set the slurry aside, but don't forget where you put it...you'll need it later. In a 4-qt. saucepan, whisk together the remaining milk, the half-and-half (or heavy cream), sugar, syrup, and salt; bring to a boil over medium-high heat and then cook for 4 minutes. Give the slurry another stir (the cornstarch tends to settle pretty quickly) and then whisk the slurry into the hot milk mixture. Return to a boil and cook, stirring, until thickened...shouldn't take more than around 2 minutes.

2. Place cream cheese in a decent-sized bowl and pour in about 1/4 cup hot milk mixture; whisk until smooth and then whisk in remaining milk mixture and let it all cool off a bit.

(Note: what you now have is your standard ice cream base. With this, you can add in all kinds of crazy stuff and make whatever kind of ice cream you want.)

3. Onward to the chocolate sauce: Bring the cocoa, brewed coffee, and sugar to a boil in a 2-qt. saucepan over high heat; cook for 30 seconds. Remove from heat and stir in the bittersweet chocolate until the whole thing is smooth.

Look how happy the towel is at the thought of the pending merger!

4. Let the sauce cool down a bit and then stir it into the ice cream base. You can try to ice the bowl down and get this chilled quickly, but your best bet is to just put the whole thing into the refrigerator. Several hours would work, but overnight would be ideal. The colder the mixture is when you put it into your ice cream machine, the better off you'll be.

5. Pour the well-chilled mixture into an ice cream maker and process according to manufacturer's instructions. I find it's usually pretty much ready to go after about 20 minutes, but just keep your ears open. When it starts to slow down and struggle a bit to turn, that means you're ready.

6. I know you want to just start eating this now like soft-serve, which you are more than welcome to do, but, ideally, you'll pack it into a container and put it into the freezer for a few hours. It'll set up that much better and you'll get nice scoops out of it after that. Again, you'll be happy to see that it's nice and soft and creamy and not at all ice-crystal-laden!

Note: Ice cream does not have to be stored next to a piece of frozen ahi tuna, but we highly recommend it...or not.

Makes approximately 1 quart of ice cream.