Chocolate Ice Cream

What do you do when you have a cup of cream and two cups of half & half that all expire today? Make ice cream of course! I decided to not go to the store and chance it that I had all the ingredients at home to make a simple chocolate ice cream based off this recipe from William Sonoma.

So I got home and happened to have a few minutes before dinner to whip up the custard. I scrounged the kitchen and found Baker's Semisweet Chocolate, a hazelnut IKEA chocolate bar, 5 eggs and the cream and half & half.

This ice cream is super creamy and very delicious and honestly I think you could do any variation on this and still make it great. I have to admit, I wasn't sure what would happen when I cut up the hazelnut bar and realized it had nuts in it and then used the bakers chocolate...but it all worked out! (you strain the custard so the nuts drop right out before you cool it.)


Chocolate Ice cream

Ingredients
1 C heavy whipping cream
2 C half & half
1 C sugar
1 t vanilla
pinch of salt
3 oz Semi Sweet Bakers Chocolate
3.5 oz IKEA hazelnut bar
5 egg yolks

Directions
1. Heat cream and half & half in the top of a double boiler until bubbly on the sides or steaming. Meanwhile, chop chocolates into small pieces.
2. Whisk together egg yolks and sugar and salt in a separate bowl.
3. When the cream is hot, remove from heat and stir in chocolate until it melts, make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom.
4. Pour part of the hot chocolate cream liquid into the eggs and whisk. Then pour the whole thing back into the top of the double boiler and whisk, stir in vanilla.
5. Heat over simmering water 10-12 minutes stirring occasionally until you can scrape a finger across the spoon and liquid is thicker.
6. Meanwhile, make an ice bath. Strain the hot custard through a sieve into the bowl over the ice bath. Cool and stir for 30 minutes. Then, cover the custard and place in the fridge for 4 hours or until completely cool.
7. Later, freeze in an ice cream maker 20 minutes (or whatever it says for that machine). Transfer ice cream to a covered container and freeze until ready to serve.*

*This ice cream was ROCK HARD when I took it out 8 hours later, it could be that our freezer is ice cold--but just microwave it on the defrost setting for 30-60 seconds until scoopable.