When the ability to think goes on a holiday- it's time to make ice-cream!
As an amateur food-maker there are a some things that I believe to be beyond my skill level. Cookies, bread, pizza from scratch, and until a few days ago, ice-cream. Just like a waffle needs its iron, I believed ice-cream needed its (ice-scream) maker. And then I found this. A recipe for chocolate ice-cream that claimed to not need an ice-cream maker, fancy ingredients or any sort of fancy-dessert making skills.
Good dark chocolate ice-cream is expensive (upwards of fifty rupees a scoop, and who stops at just one scoop, right?). As I am a glutton for good dark chocolate anything I was dying to try this out.
Which I did, last night. I shopped at two Spencer's supermarts, one Big Bazaar (BAD big bazaar! You don't even stock dahi! Like, ever!), one Araambagh and a good old stand-alone grocery store for the ingredients (which I had to message a friend for-several times- having stepped out over-estimating my recipe retention powers :)). A few minutes ago I tasted my first spoon: it was- :D:D:D
From the recipe at Cup of Jo:
Ingredients:
1 can (14-ounce/400 grams) sweetened condensed milk
3/4 cup (180 grams) whole milk
3/4 cup (175 grams) heavy cream
6 ounces (170 grams) bittersweet chocolate, chopped finely
1/4 cup (25 grams) cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon instant espresso powder (or two tablespoons freshly-brewed espresso)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
A pinch of fine sea salt
5 teaspoons (12 grams) cornstarch
2 tablespoons cold water
A 400gm can of Amul Condensed Milk (Mithai Mate) is around Rs. 10 cheaper than the Nestle tin. They pop open like cold drink cans, no tools needed!
I'm not sure if cornstarch is the same as cornflour, but I suspect it is. I think the reason my ice-cream turned out on the fudgier side is because proper measures would have helped in this case. I used my smallest eating spoon-and heaped it to count it as one tsp, and that was probably too much.
In place of a cup measure, I used a 250 ml capacity steel tumbler: a phone call home confirmed that 3/4 cup is a little more than half the tumbler. I didn't have to use two tetra packs of cream (which is low fat, not full fat, but good enough I guess. It is SO MUCH FUN squirting cream out of the pack :D), a 200 ml pack (ml-gram conversions require specific gravity measures and Archimedes: which is why I stuck to the cup measure :D)
For the chocolate, I used Cadbury's Bournville Rich Cocoa. Two bars of 80gm each cost a total of around Rs.180. Bars of baking chocolate are cheaper, but I don't know where to find them in Kolkata. In terms of taste, Bournville does more than okay; they also make awesome chocolate lava cakes.
I couldn't find full fat milk (extra slim and ultra slim versions being the ones in demand these days I guess) so I used Toned over Double Toned milk. (Packet milk is what I will locate next time, as opposed to overpriced tetra packs.)
Total cost of ingredients: around Rs. 385. Assuming I get 15-20 eats out of the prepared ice-cream, that's around Rs. 25-Rs.20 a scoop.However, that is a conservative estimate. This is rich enough to satisfy me by the spoonful, so the actual cost comes down waaay more.
Directions:
In a heavy-bottomed large pan, whisk sweetened condensed milk, whole milk and heavy cream until combined. Set the pan over medium-high heat and bring to a boil.
Take off heat and add the finely-chopped chocolate, cocoa powder, instant espresso powder, vanilla extract and salt. Whisk until the chocolate melts and the cocoa powder is completely dissolved.
Mix cornstarch and cold water in a bowl with a fork until completely dissolved, and add to the ice cream base. Whisk until combined. (Mixing cornstarch was weird for me, I've never done it before. The goop looked liquid but my stirring hand felt as if it was trying to negotiate a tight cake batter.)
Place the pan over medium-high heat and cook, whisking constantly, scraping the sides and the bottom of the pan to prevent burning, until thickened, for 8-10 minutes.
Transfer to a heatproof bowl and set aside, uncovered, to cool for half an hour. Don't worry if a skin forms on top. When the bowl is cool enough to handle, cover with plastic wrap and chill thoroughly--preferably overnight--in the refrigerator.
Before transferring the chilled ice cream to the freezer, stir or whisk to dissolve the skin on top and scrape into a container. Cover with plastic, this time pressing the wrap against the ice cream to create an airtight seal; put the lid on (or cover with an additional layer of plastic wrap) and freeze until firm enough to scoop.
...Aand this is today morning. The change in 'colour' of the photos is owing to that slight transformation known as night and day ofcourse :)
P.S. Looking at the comments section on that post, it seems as if others have also had fudge-like results. Maybe next time I will seriously reduce the cornflour content and slightly increase the condensed milk quantity?
As an amateur food-maker there are a some things that I believe to be beyond my skill level. Cookies, bread, pizza from scratch, and until a few days ago, ice-cream. Just like a waffle needs its iron, I believed ice-cream needed its (ice-scream) maker. And then I found this. A recipe for chocolate ice-cream that claimed to not need an ice-cream maker, fancy ingredients or any sort of fancy-dessert making skills.
Good dark chocolate ice-cream is expensive (upwards of fifty rupees a scoop, and who stops at just one scoop, right?). As I am a glutton for good dark chocolate anything I was dying to try this out.
Which I did, last night. I shopped at two Spencer's supermarts, one Big Bazaar (BAD big bazaar! You don't even stock dahi! Like, ever!), one Araambagh and a good old stand-alone grocery store for the ingredients (which I had to message a friend for-several times- having stepped out over-estimating my recipe retention powers :)). A few minutes ago I tasted my first spoon: it was- :D:D:D
 | ||
| It's a bit on the fudgier side (more on that later) but that's the great thing about chocolate: even if it doesn't turn out exactly like the intended picture, it still tastes great! |
From the recipe at Cup of Jo:
Ingredients:
1 can (14-ounce/400 grams) sweetened condensed milk
3/4 cup (180 grams) whole milk
3/4 cup (175 grams) heavy cream
6 ounces (170 grams) bittersweet chocolate, chopped finely
1/4 cup (25 grams) cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon instant espresso powder (or two tablespoons freshly-brewed espresso)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
A pinch of fine sea salt
5 teaspoons (12 grams) cornstarch
2 tablespoons cold water
 | |
| I didn't have any measures with me so I went by approximation, smell and sight. Heck, even when I have measures I do that :P |
I'm not sure if cornstarch is the same as cornflour, but I suspect it is. I think the reason my ice-cream turned out on the fudgier side is because proper measures would have helped in this case. I used my smallest eating spoon-and heaped it to count it as one tsp, and that was probably too much.
In place of a cup measure, I used a 250 ml capacity steel tumbler: a phone call home confirmed that 3/4 cup is a little more than half the tumbler. I didn't have to use two tetra packs of cream (which is low fat, not full fat, but good enough I guess. It is SO MUCH FUN squirting cream out of the pack :D), a 200 ml pack (ml-gram conversions require specific gravity measures and Archimedes: which is why I stuck to the cup measure :D)
 |
| The cream even settles prettily in the glass! |
For the chocolate, I used Cadbury's Bournville Rich Cocoa. Two bars of 80gm each cost a total of around Rs.180. Bars of baking chocolate are cheaper, but I don't know where to find them in Kolkata. In terms of taste, Bournville does more than okay; they also make awesome chocolate lava cakes.
 |
| Chop the chocolate finer than I did, or it'll have as hard a time melting in the pot :P |
I couldn't find full fat milk (extra slim and ultra slim versions being the ones in demand these days I guess) so I used Toned over Double Toned milk. (Packet milk is what I will locate next time, as opposed to overpriced tetra packs.)
Total cost of ingredients: around Rs. 385. Assuming I get 15-20 eats out of the prepared ice-cream, that's around Rs. 25-Rs.20 a scoop.However, that is a conservative estimate. This is rich enough to satisfy me by the spoonful, so the actual cost comes down waaay more.
Directions:
In a heavy-bottomed large pan, whisk sweetened condensed milk, whole milk and heavy cream until combined. Set the pan over medium-high heat and bring to a boil.
 |
| No heavy bottomed pan in my fledgling kitchen. The good old saucepan substitutes. |
Take off heat and add the finely-chopped chocolate, cocoa powder, instant espresso powder, vanilla extract and salt. Whisk until the chocolate melts and the cocoa powder is completely dissolved.
 | ||
| NOW is when the concoction begins to smell divine! |
Mix cornstarch and cold water in a bowl with a fork until completely dissolved, and add to the ice cream base. Whisk until combined. (Mixing cornstarch was weird for me, I've never done it before. The goop looked liquid but my stirring hand felt as if it was trying to negotiate a tight cake batter.)
Place the pan over medium-high heat and cook, whisking constantly, scraping the sides and the bottom of the pan to prevent burning, until thickened, for 8-10 minutes.
Transfer to a heatproof bowl and set aside, uncovered, to cool for half an hour. Don't worry if a skin forms on top. When the bowl is cool enough to handle, cover with plastic wrap and chill thoroughly--preferably overnight--in the refrigerator.
 | |
| The process of tranferring the 'ice-cream' leaves a lot of licking potential in the saucepan |
...Aand this is today morning. The change in 'colour' of the photos is owing to that slight transformation known as night and day ofcourse :)
P.S. Looking at the comments section on that post, it seems as if others have also had fudge-like results. Maybe next time I will seriously reduce the cornflour content and slightly increase the condensed milk quantity?
That looks yum, Koyel. Did you get espresso powder at the Spenser's as well? Any recommendations on that one?
ReplyDeleteAnannya
Hey pi-pu-xi-xu :D I am actually very coffee uneducated because I don't drink that stuff. None of the shops had coffee anything that said 'espresso' on the packet, so I went with a nestle instant coffee sachet. I think it worked well enough because there is a hint of coffee that I catch with every mouthful.
ReplyDeleteIf you try this, see if you can reduce the cornstarch amount, the cooking time (my ice cream thickened around 5-6 minutes, so maybe I'll stop there next time) and/or increase the milk/condensed milk content. The longer the ice cream spends in the freezer, the fudgier it gets. But it's still chocolatey and yum :)