Never Tell a Chemist He [or She] Can't Cook {Recipe: Chocolate Ice Cream}

It's summertime! Of course ice cream is good anytime of year, but when temperatures are rising nothing beats cool, creamy ice cream! Both my husband and I grew up having homemade ice cream. My family usually just made vanilla and served it with various toppings. My husband's family made vanilla, coffee, strawberry and chocolate. The only one I ever tried that my father-in-law made was the chocolate. 

My father-in-law liked to tell a story of when one ladies in his friend group said that baba au rum difficult to make and there is no way my father-in-law could make it. His response was, "I have a PhD in Chemistry, I can certainly make baba au rhum." So the next time they got together, my father-in-law made baba au rhum and, according to him, it was perfect. He would end the story with, "Never tell a chemist he can't cook." 

That was the only time he ever made baba au rum, but there were other dishes he prided himself with. One of them is ice cream, in particular, chocolate ice cream (the others are sourdough waffles and pancakes, which I hope to make one day). I have to admit, its pretty good. I don't usually like a custard based ice cream because I have had some that tasted "eggy." This one does not. 

Original Chocolate Ice Cream Recipe

Chocolate Ice Cream

The original recipe for this ice cream is supposed to make one gallon. We don't go through that much, so I reduced to 1/3 and got about a quart of ice cream. 

2 cups whole milk

4 tablespoons grated chocolate

1 cup sugar

1 egg

2 teaspoons flour

pinch of salt

1 1/3 cups heavy cream

scant 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Scald milk, sugar and chocolate. Allow chocolate to melt and mix with other ingredients. Strain through cheesecloth, if necessary. Beat together the egg, sugar, and flour. Very slowly stir milk mixture into beaten egg mixture, be careful not to do this fast or the egg will cook. Return to fire and heat, but do not boil until mixture thickens. Cool. When cold, add whipped cream*, cinnamon and vanilla extract. Stir thoroughly and freeze [according to your ice cream maker's instructions]. 

*Note: All the other ice cream recipes that are from my father-in-law specify that heavy cream be "whipped stiff," so I assume the same goes for this recipe. The texture turned out perfect with whipping the heavy cream. 

This recipe comes from a hand written and illustrated cook book from my mother-in-law. At the beginning of the ice cream section she wrote out some tips for making ice cream. Here are the tips:

Enjoy and Happy Summer!