Weekend Cooking...Magic Ice Cream!!

Ok, so maybe you read about the peach ice cream a couple of weeks ago. And you would love to make some ice cream, but you don't own an ice cream maker. Well, you can either go out and buy one...or you can make the Magic Easy Chocolate Ice Cream!
I saw a recipe for the vanilla in this weeks Cook's Illustrated newsletter and they mentioned that they had previously published a recipe for chocolate.
Did someone say CHOCOLATE??
I googled it, found the recipe on-line and gave it a try
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It is very easy, quite quick and very tasty. Now, I will warn you if it starts to melt as you are eating it, it will begin to take on a more mousse consistency, which is not a bad thing, just a fact. It certainly didn't lessen my enjoyment...not one little bit. But frozen solid, it has a very smooth, ice cream like consistency and was very yummy. The only change I made to their recipe was to decrease the coffee from 1 tsp. to 1/2 tsp.

Easy Chocolate Ice Cream

1/2 teaspoon instant coffee or espresso powder

1 tablespoon hot water

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped fine

1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Pinch salt

1 1/4 cups cold whipping cream

In a small bowl, combine coffee powder and hot water. Let stand until coffee dissolves, about 5 minutes.

In a bowl, microwave chocolate, sweetened condensed milk, and the coffee mixture, stirring every 10 seconds, until chocolate is melted, approximately 1 minutes. Stir in vanilla extract and salt; let cool.

With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, whip cream to soft peaks, about 2 minutes. Whisk 1/4 of the whipped cream into the cooled chocolate mixture. Fold the remaining whipped cream into the chocolate mixture until incorporated.

 
Freeze in an airtight container until firm, at least 6 hours or up to 2 weeks.

NOTE: If you plan to store the ice cream for more than a few days, place plastic wrap directly on its surface before freezing.

Makes 1 quart ice cream

Cook's Country Test Kitchen Discoveries:
We used sweetened condensed milk in place of cream because it maintained its velvety texture in the freezer.
Instead of a double boiler, we kept things simple and used the microwave to melt the chocolate and combine the ingredients. For a fluffy, light texture similar to churned ice cream, we took a cue from the Italian dessert semifreddo and folded in whipped cream.
Bittersweet chocolate also worked well in maintaining the texture. To heighten chocolate flavor even more, we turned to instant coffee powder. The note of bitterness intensified the chocolate without making it taste like a cup of coffee. It also helped balance the sweetness of the condensed milk.
A pinch of salt and a little vanilla extract rounded out the flavors.

One other thing I wanted to offer. When you make this, you only use 1/2 of the can of sweetened condensed milk. So what to do with the rest? I would suggest...caramel sauce. Here is a simple way to make it, from the Eagle Brand's web site.

Homemade Caramel Sauce. 

HEAT oven to 425°F. Pour sweetened condensed milk into 9-inch pie plate. Cover with foil. Place pie plate in larger shallow pan. Fill larger pan with about 1/2-inch hot water to surround pie plate.

BAKE 1 hour or until thick and caramel-colored. Carefully remove from oven; remove pie plate from shallow pan. Whisk caramel until smooth. Cool 20 minutes before serving. Store any leftover caramel in refrigerator. Bring to room temperature or heat until warm to serve. 

That's it. Put the sweetened condensed milk in a container in a water bath in the oven...I hour later..caramel sauce.

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This is my contribution this to this week's Weekend Cooking.
"Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend."
Be sure to check out the other entries this week. As always, hosted by Beth Fish Reads.

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