Episode 66
September 4, 2011
Mint Chocolate Chip Fudge Ripple American Style Ice Cream
How’s that for a title? I know it’s a little past ice cream season but I really wanted to get a chocolate ice cream recipe in as well as make an American style ice cream – after all I did promise I would make an American style ice cream in the saffron ice cream (French style) episode.
I don’t know if I’m completely satisfied with this recipe. Unlike the French style base which we made many, many times in school I only made an American style ice cream once. I figured, “Hey it doesn’t even need to be cooked! How hard could it be?” Well when you start adding in a bunch of different ingredients things do get a little hairy.
Since I wanted to push this episode out as fast as I could I only got one chance to experiment with this recipe. The American style ice cream we made in school was vanilla and our textbook explains how to make it into chocolate – no big deal right? Well I was a little surprised at how little chocolate actually melts into the hot liquid. Ganache, for example, has way more chocolate than this recipe does and yet the chocolate melts completely. It probably has to do with the amount of liquid in the recipe. Chocolate being fat based is more likely to melt uniformly into a fat based substance, even if it’s just more chocolate, rather than a liquid based one. Since this is the case, make sure you strain your mixture through a fine sieve to get out and pieces of unmelted chocolate. Alternatively, if your mixture is not piping hot anymore you can run it in the blender or a food processor to try and get more of the chocolate incorporated.
What was odd about the recipe in the textbook is that it only requires the recipe to be heated to 180 degrees F. Since it was my first time following the recipe I decided to play the game and follow the instructions. Shortly after reaching 180 degrees I decided that just going all the way to boiling was perfectly fine. 180 degrees F in a French style base makes sense because that is right at nappe (which means to coat the back of a spoon) which is right before the eggs curdle and when the eggs are at their strongest and creamiest. But American style ice cream lacks eggs – we only heat the liquid to melt the sugar and the chocolate chips. What is the point of being so careful that we only go to 180 degrees? I’ve already made the change in the recipe I have available for download.
Since American style ice cream lacks eggs its consistency is very different than French style ice cream – especially when its homemade. American style ice cream is less creamy and more icy than French style. French style ice cream is rich and creamy but is more difficult to make than American style. On paper, most people don’t think they can tell the difference but eat them side-by-side and you’ll notice a big difference. In fact, go out today to your grocer’s freezer section and buy French vanilla ice cream and Vanilla bean ice cream – it’s very noticeable in the Breyer’s brand – you will notice a difference and I’d bet a nickel than you’ll love the French vanilla over the regular vanilla ice cream.
My original intention was to experiment with the idea of a fudge ripple in this recipe. You all know how much I love ganache and I use it for everything – dipping, coating, filling – you name it I will recommend ganache. So naturally I thought of ganache to create an extra fudgy ripple throughout an already chocolaty ice cream. Unfortunately I think I made my ganache just a little too stiff for the recipe and it ended up rippling a little but mostly creating fudgy chunks. Fail? Hm, I guess in terms of what I was trying to achieve yes – but those fudgy chunks are so irresistible especially when balanced with crunchy hard chocolate chips. I altered the recipe to make a softer ganache (2 parts cream to 1 part chocolate) which should ripple better than the standard ganache (equal parts cream and chocolate) which I used in the episode. If you want chunkier fudge definitely use the standard ganache recipe.
It wasn’t long after I decided to do this recipe that I asked on my Facebook fanpage what everybody’s favorite ice cream flavor was. One of my fans said that she loves mint chocolate chip and immediately thought that I could definitely make this ice cream mint chocolate chip. Not quite as easy as I thought. A lot of you know that I have a tendency to use booze whenever I can to flavor my recipes – perhaps to a fault? Well definitely to a fault once you hear how this recipe first started out. Alcohol, as many of you know already, is a freezing inhibitor. After all when you stick a bottle of vodka in the freezer it never turns to ice. So when you use alcohol in a frozen dessert recipe you have to be careful how much you use. Too much and your mixture won’t freeze properly and too little and the flavor won’t come through.
My original recipe had 4 ounces of alcohol which looking back is actually a lot. Let’s think in terms of cocktails. 4 ounces is half a glass, 4 shots of liquor, and enough to get many people a little tipsy if not fairly drunk. I’m not exactly sure what made me think that 4 ounces of creme de menthe would work. Even after I poured the bottle and noticed that a little less than a third of it was gone I didn’t really think twice about it. Well needless to say the first batch didn’t work out but I got a great cocktail out of it. Now with all that being said, my friend and fellow food blogger Erik over at the All in the Name of Noms recommends using a little alcohol in every ice cream recipe to help give it a nice soft texture.
Sugar is also a freezing inhibitor. If you think back to granita or the sorbet episodes which are basically just fruit juices mixed with simple syrup and frozen you’ll remember that too much sugar will also prevent a base from freezing. The original ice cream recipe called for 7+ ounces of sugar which I bumped down to 6 (and then for the final recipe to 5) so that we could add just a little bit more alcohol for flavor. Alas, I think I have to concede and I’m going to have to recommend that a peppermint extract is the better choice in this case. The newer batch, while still minty, just isn’t quite strong enough in my opinion. In the end you can use a little bit of both to get a good combination of mint flavors – and I made that note in the recipe available for download.
Now even though this recipe is chocolate and American style you can make a chocolate ice cream using the French style base. I haven’t tried it, but it should melt into the French style base better than it did into the American style base – after all a French style is very heavy in fats rather than liquid. Just add the chocolate chips into the French style base and allow them to melt and then strain to get out any coagulated egg or unmelted chocolate. You may have to play with the amount of egg or chocolate in the French-style recipe though because the chocolate will alter the consistency and you may end up with a very very thick base. Eventually, I’d like to experiment with using cocoa powder instead of chocolate chips. Dutch processed cocoa powder blends in very well with liquids and there would be a lot less waste than using chocolate chips – and the flavor would be more intense.
That’s it for ice cream episodes this year but next summer I’m going to try some more advanced ice cream recipes. This was a good year for ice cream introductions and providing you with four great master recipes: French style base ice cream, sorbet, granita, and now American style.
Here’s the recipe for the Mint Chocolate Chip Fudge Ripple American Style ice cream. I definitely recommend altering it and making it your own! Remember that you can add up to 7 ounces of sugar if you’d like – I took a couple of the ounces out to compensate for the alcohol. The video is below! Thank you for watching!
Looks delish!!