I love ice cream so much, I could eat it at any time of the day, everyday. I could eat it in huge amounts. I would buy ice cream even if I was broke. It just makes me happy and it works all the time (provided that it is legit, of course). I don’t have a particular flavour I prefer because I love everything (except durian, which is banned from this blog).

Growing up, I always had ice cream stocked up in the freezer because my family loves ice cream. It was the default to me. When I visited some friends’ houses in my teenage life and realized they have no ice cream, I thought they were weird. I don’t know why kind of lives they are leading.

I’ve done a post about ice cream several years ago (this blog is old!) and I mentioned that I prefer local ice cream shops over imported brands. I often buy ice cream from local ice cream shops, some of which I blogged about but I really have ice cream too often to document everything on this blog. I prefer ice cream that’s made fresh, with real ingredients, rather than ice cream made with stabilizers and other things which are necessary for shelf life and texture control. I appreciate ice cream that is good because it’s fresh and real. A bit of inconsistency in texture doesn’t hurt sometimes.

I have a Philips ice cream maker from a few years back (probably 7 years back!?) but haven’t really gotten down to making ice cream. I’ve only tried probably 5 times before today (of which 3 was kind of fail).

Since I have extra whipping cream leftover from making tiramisu, I decided that ice cream was a good idea. I’m trying to recreate my favourite Hei ice cream from ninethirty/ awfully chocolate!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BDvex1GHvCy/?taken-by=orrrrange

Hungry Bird’s Dark Chocolate Ice Cream

Ingredients:

• 5 egg yolks
• 200g 70% dark chocolate
• 4 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 250ml milk
• 250ml whipping cream (at least 35% fat)
• 1/4 tsp salt (to taste, optional)

Method:

Part 1 – Custard

1. Whisk egg yolks and sugar together until colour turns pale and mixture increases in volume.
2. Add in cocoa powder. Mix well
3. Over a saucepan, heat up milk to around 65 – 70deg C, not boiling.
4. Add a little bit of warm milk to egg yolk mixture while continuously whisking. Do not let the egg yolks scramble up.
5. Gradually add all milk to egg yolk mixture to obtain a homogeneous custard. Add in dark chocolate couvetures and mix until all chocolate has melted. Add salt, to taste (start with 1/8 tsp).
6. Return custard to stove top and continue heating at 70 degs C. This will take time. Like maybe 20 minutes, 30 minutes even? Be patient.
7. Custard is ready when it is thick and coats the back of a spoon.
8. Leave custard to cool, preferably to fridge temperature. You can place the bowl in an ice bath, in the fridge. Custard should be cooled as much as possible.

Part 2 – Whipped cream

1. Place bowl, whisk (or beater of electric mixer) in the fridge or freezer to cool for at least 10 minutes before use.
2. Prepare an ice bath. Place bowl above ice bath and pour in whipping cream. Whipping cream should be at fridge temperature before use.
3. Whip the cream with hand whisk or electric mixer until soft peaks have formed. Do not overbeat as it will turn into butter and is irreversible.

Part 3 – Ice cream

1. Fold whipped cream into cooled custard until a homogeneous mixture is obtained. It will resemble a thick whipped cream mixture. Keep this mixture in the fridge and chill to as cold as possible before churning.
2. Prepare ice cream maker and churn the ice cream according to manufacturer’s instructions.
3. When churning is done, transfer the ice cream into a container with lid and let it freeze for a few hours.

Notes:

• Use good quality dark chocolate and cocoa powder. Your ice cream’s taste will depend on it. I use Callebaut 70% dark chocolate and Valrhona cocoa powder.
• You can choose to use raw sugar, brown sugar or any sugar you wish. However, sugar free is not recommended as the texture will change.
• A bit of salt will make the ice cream taste better, add it slowly to taste. I added too much for mine.
• Some recipes calls for no cream/ less cream and more milk. That’s like gelato, but I like mine to be creamy.
• Egg yolks are necessary to hold it together. Do not trust recipes without egg yolks.
• To prevent ice cream from being icy, make sure that your ice cream mixture is chilled to as cold as possible before churning. You need the ice cream to freeze as fast as possible in order to reduce iciness in the texture. For most homemade machines, it will not produce results as good as a professional one because the machine can’t be as cold. But try your best.
•  Do not exceed the recommended volume for your ice cream maker. Don’t be greedy.
• The ice bath for whipping cream and cooling the custard is necessary. If you have cooling packs, it may work even better than ice.

After patiently waiting for a day, I could finally have ice cream for breakfast! (Yes, that’s right. I had to go out in the morning and I need daylight for a good photo so what else could I do?)

The recipe for ice cream is simple but there’a  lot of passive waiting involved – waiting for the custard to thicken up, waiting for the custard to cool, waiting for the ice cream to churn, waiting for the ice cream to freeze, and waiting for the frozen ice cream to soften so you can finally eat it.

That last wait was the most excruciating. Who the hell can wait 10 minutes for it to soften? I can’t.  I want my ice cream NOW!

With good patience of waiting for it to soften, I managed to get a beautiful looking scoop for this picture. And of course, I had like 3 more scoops of that after this!