Double Chocolate Reese's Ice Cream Recipe

Restarting medical school after what seems like a prolonged holiday abroad definitely isn't easy, and it took a while to finally get into the swing of things. The friendliness and helpfulness of the hospital staff (and the patience of the seniors I'm shadowing!) is a big plus towards easing my way into hospital hours, and the mix of familiar faces with the new makes asking for help a tad easier. Meanwhile on the home aspect of my Australian life, I'm finally back on Thomas Street. Moving into a house with a group of close friends is one of the best decisions I've made in the last year, and having such fun housemates make my heart beats a little faster every time I walk up to the front door.  

A little ice cream goes a long way in chasing away the back-to-school-blues, and boy, a single scoop of this chocolate ice cream is enough to knock anybody's socks off. It's intensely rich, much like the chocolate sherbet recipe by the same author, but this recipe uses chocolate in addition to cocoa powder to carry the chocolate profile, which helps offset the graininess that was a personal sticking point in the chocolate sherbet recipe. (Although, my other housemates couldn't find any fault with that texture, so maybe it's just me...) 

This ice cream, on the other hand, is singularly smooth and creamy. You simply can't go wrong with this recipe, whether you stick with the classic and let the chocolate ice cream shine on its merit, or if you go your own way like I did and brighten up the flavour with chopped Reese's. It's mid-winter as I type, and even as Melbourne experiences some of its coldest days in recent history, this ice cream vanished from the freezer in the span of two days. 

A chocolate-related surprise I recently encountered was the great quality of Kirkland chocolate. Based on a recommendation, I had been relying on the professional-quality brand Callebaut over the last few years, and ever since I found that Costco sells Callebaut 54.5% at a great price, had been using that. But from my personal experience, it can be a little on the sweet side, and I was looking for a replacement without breaking the bank. Years of experiences with shoddy quality of home-brands goods had made me wary of all things home-brand, and so even with the overwhelmingly positive Amazon reviews raving about Kirkland chocolate chips (Costco's home-brand), it still took me a year before I gave them a chance. But in a single-blinded cross-sectional study in a small focal group*, everybody unanimously described Kirkland's as having a more intense chocolate profile and a smoother mouthfeel compared to Callebaut 54.5%. Kirkland chocolate are only available in 2kg sacks, and with such a great chocolate ice cream recipe in hand, there's no doubt where most of those chocolate chips are going to eventually end up... And the original chocolate ice cream recipe sans Reese's is so good, Reese's really is optional when it comes to this recipe. 

*I fed my housemates and friends chocolate  
  

Double Chocolate Reese's Ice Cream 

Original recipe by David Lebovitz

Ingredients
475g (2 cups/500 milliliters) heavy cream
3 tablespoons (21 grams) unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
140g (5 ounces) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
245g (1 cup/250 milliliters) whole milk
150g (¾ cup) sugar
Pinch of salt
5 large egg yolks
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
150g (1 cup) coarsely chopped Reese's (optional)

Steps

1) In a large saucepan, whisk 1 cup of cream with cocoa powder over a medium fire until combined. When the cocoa mixture boil, reduce the heat and let simmer for about 30s, whisking all the while. Remove from fire and whisk in the chocolate until smooth, and then the remaining 1 cup of cream. Set a metal strainer over the large saucepan and set aside. 

2) In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks. Set aside. 

3) In another saucepan, combine milk, sugar, and salt over a medium fire. As the milk gets heated up, slowly drizzle the warm milk into the egg yolks while vigorously whisking the egg yolks to prevent the yolks from cooking. The warmed egg yolks are now 'tempered' and can be poured into the milk mixture. 

3) With a spatula, continue to stir the mixture over medium heat, scraping down the sides of the saucepan and the bottom as you do. When it thickens and coats the spatula, remove from heat and pour the mixture through the metal strainer into the chocolate mixture. Stir to combine and then add the vanilla. 

4) Chill the mixture thoroughly in a refrigerator (okay, a freezer if you're impatient like me. But remember: the colder the mixture is when you chuck it into the ice cream machine, the faster it freezes and the less icy the final ice cream becomes!) Pour into your ice cream maker and let it whirl. 


Notes (from David Lebovitz): 
If the chilled custard is too thick to pour into the ice cream machine, whisk it vigorously to thin it out.