Ice Cream

ABC Wednesday
The letter is I
For ICE CREAM
which most everybody loves

Here is the recipe for a special Italian Ice Cream

Old Fashioned Stracciatella (vanilla Bean Ice Cream with Shards of Chocolate)

A favourite, consisting of a vanilla bean custard, churned, with the addition of a stream of decadent melted dark chocolate added in the last minute of churning.

So - you heat 250 ml of heavy cream and 500 ml of half and half with 1/4 tsp of salt, 1 Tsp of corn flour, 1 vanilla pod, slit in half,  and 3/4 cup of condensed milk .  Bring to a boil, then  lower the heat.

Separate five nice large brown eggs and stir the egg yolks with a little of the warm milk, whisking constantly as you pour.  Add to the remainder of the warm milk, whiskig constantly.

Cook it over low hear, stirring and scraping the bottom with a wooden spoon until the custard has thickened and will coat the back of a wooden spoon.  Then, just for good luck, cook it for another three or four minutes.

Leave it to cool completely, then strain, removing the vanilla pods.  Pour it into the bucket of an ice cream maker.

Freeze the custard in the ice cream maker for about an hour,

In the last few minutes melt 85 gms of dark rich chocolate, chopped, in a heat resistant bowl suspended over a pot of simmering water.  Then leave to cool for a minute.

In the last two minutes of churning pour as thin a stream of the chocolate as you can manage into the ice cream.  The chocolate will harden on contact and shatter. Allow it to sit overnight in the freezer.

If, perchance, like me you do not have an ice cream maker, here is a way to make

 ice cream  by hand,  and wing it with the chocolate shards.....

Prepare the custard, then chill it over an ice bath.  

Put a deep baking dish made of something durable into the freezer

 and pour your custard mixture into it.

After forty-five minutes open the door and check it.

As it starts to freeze near the edges, remove it
 from the freezer

 and stir vigorously, - then return it to the freezer.

Continue to check the mixture every thirty minutes,

 beating it up as it's freezing, with a stick blender 

or a hand held blender, if possible.

When it is a good consistency do the chocolate thing, as above.

The whole thing is going to take about 2-3 hours, so leave yourself a lazy afternoon to tackle this ice cream making, - the results are worth it.

Enjoy!

Many more variations on the letter I here at ABC Wednesday 

with thanks to Roger and Denise.