Smooth Dark Chocolate Ice-Cream (egg-free)
I made this ice-cream for the first time on New Year’s Eve and it went down well…so well we finished the tub within a few days. It’s incredibly smooth on your tongue, an intense chocolate fix and has a long finish because it coats your mouth. It tastes rich due to the high chocolate content and because it’s also smooth it appears to have more cream than it actually has, it’s two thirds made with milk. The smoothness comes from using liquid glucose, available in large supermarkets and the pharmacy. This ice-cream is so straight forward, there’s no custard to make, you’re only warming up the ingredients.
This recipe came about because I wanted to try and prevent some homemade ice-cream’s texture deteriorate once stored in the freezer and after research which I posted about here, on how to keep your homemade ice-cream smooth, I added liquid glucose. The ice-cream will still need 5-10 mins in the fridge to soften enough to scoop but once in your bowl it becomes soft with a melting texture.
This chocolate managed to convert a non-dessert eater to relish his serving, it had him licking his lips at the end of it...that’s it…he didn’t have to say anything…my job was done!
Although it freezes hard just like any good shop bought ice-cream once stored in a home freezer, it does however start to melt really quickly once out of the freezer. This was the first time I had to set up the photo shoot with an empty glass to position everything in place before bringing out the glass containing the ice-cream.
The frosted glass you see is exactly the same as the clear one, I had to put it back in the freezer while shooting to stop the ice-cream melting and of course the glass frosted too, which I thought was quite nice.
[print_this]
I took the idea of this custard-less ice-cream from a recipe for Bitter Chocolate Sorbet in the Dessert book by David Everitt-Matthias
Smooth Dark Chocolate Ice-Cream
- 300 ml double cream (heavy cream)
- 700 ml full fat milk
- 175 grm sugar ( you can adjust, start at 150 grm stir and add another 25grms, if still not happy add a little more)
- 3 1/2 tablespoons of liquid glucose (warm it first in microwave for 10 seconds or put jar in pan of hot water, it measures different if cold)
- 70 grm pure cocoa powder (not drinking chocolate)
- 230 grm dark chocolate I used 70% cocoa solids, chopped into bits
Bring the first 4 ingredients together in a pan to a simmer.
Add the cocoa powder and whisk it in very well and continue simmering until it has melted, for a about 1-2 minutes, turn off the heat.
Add the chopped chocolate and whisk until melted.
Sieve the mixture into a jug/container and let it cool before churning in the ice-cream maker.
When weighing or measuring out liquid glucose in my recipes warm the bottle first because if cold it measures different.
Bring the cream, milk, sugar, liquid glucose to a simmer, add your cocoa powder and whisk until melted well, simmer for 1-2 mins, turn off heat.
Add the chopped chocolate straight away and again whisk making sure all dissolved.
Sieve into a container to cool before churning…I put mine in the fridge and because it’s really cold it churns faster than normal in the ice-cream machine.
[/print_this]
The type of ice-cream machine I have is a cheap one you put bowl in the freezer and doesn’t churn all of the ice-cream well, but it doesn’t seem to matter with this ice-cream containing the liquid glucose.
Even with the mixture like this it still had a wonderful smooth texture.
Below is what happen when I brought it out of the freezer to soften to scoop. I had left in the fridge for 30mins because I forgot and by the time I went to scoop it was mostly liquid again. I put it back in the freezer and found the texture had not suffered at all.
As you see it freezes hard but wait 5-10 mins in the fridge to soften and…
…it starts to soften enough to scoop.
Once out of the fridge it quickly starts to soften and melt.