The Home-Made Mocha Ice-Cream Experiment Comes Through!

Got it right this time. Almost. If not for the misleading recipe (Da**!)

Anyway, here’s the website for those ice-cream buffs out there who have all the time in the world to make ice-creams. I did, but only for a day or two. My dissertation will have to come next.

Serving Ice-Cream.com

This website provides simple instructions for a whole range of ice-cream flavours, including snow ice-cream (?) and sea salt ice-cream (??), some of which were submitted by men in the street, so be careful what you wish for. Most of them are pretty reliable. My choice was the chocolate ice-cream recipe, but I had to tweak it in some ways to make the ice-cream creamier and thicker in order to achieve the correct texture (as advised by the in-house ice-cream chef).

There are basically 2 types of ice-cream recipe, both of which should give similar results (at least my taste buds tell me there aren’t any differences). One of these is the Philadelphia style; the other is the custard style. The recipe that I have here abides by the latter style.

Ingredients:

• Chocolate bar: 1/3 cup, broken up into pieces
• Unsweetened cocoa powder: 1/3 cup
• Coffee powder: 3 tsp
• Skimmed milk: 190ml (3/4 cup)
• Large eggs: 2
• Castor sugar: 1/4 cup
• Fresh whipping cream: 375ml (1 1/2 cups)
• Vanilla essence: 1 tsp

Method:

1. Melt chocolate in a bowl by microwaving it on medium (about 3-4min).
2. Stir in cocoa and coffee powder till mixture is consistent.
3. Add milk and microwave on medium for 3min to blend with chocolate mixture.
4. Whisk mixture for 2min till smooth and cool for 30min in fridge.
5. Whisk eggs for till light and fluffy.
6. Add sugar and whisk for 2min till consistent.
7. Add cream and vanilla essence into mixture. Whisk for another 2min.
8. Stir in cooled chocolate mixture and whisk for another 2min.
9. Chill the mixture for 1 hr.
10. Remove from fridge and whisk for 3-4min. Then leave to set in freezer for 1hr.
11. Thereafter, remove mixture from freezer after every 1 hr and whisk (or stir) gently with a fork. Repeat this step for 3-4 times.
12. Finally, leave the mixture to set in the freezer overnight.
13. Serve with chocolate shavings on top of ice-cream.

Tricks:

• Use a wide and shallow container for setting the ice-cream in the freezer, so that it freezes more evenly and quickly. A plastic rather than an aluminium container would help to keep the temperature low while whisking it during the intervals.
• The trick really, is to keep whisking (at the beginning with a whisker) and stirring (later with a fork) the ice-cream so that the mixture is even in terms of thickness, taste and texture. Which is why I recommend this recipe to those who have more than enough time to spare on their hands.
• For a faster and easier recipe of custard based ice-cream, you can refer to the 1st ice-cream recipe here: ‘Lemon Ice-Cream‘.

Disclaimer:

• I came to realise that this mocha flavour is made with a chocolate base and an added tinge of coffee. It should have been the other way round for it to truly deserve the title of a real ‘mocha delight’.

Serving:
2 pints (= 2 tubs of Ben & Jerry’s)