To me making ice cream is very exciting.  It seems like a little miracle to be able to make from scratch something I’ve never made before.  And it’s been so much fun for my family to eat this delicious homemade confection.  So, I made the chocolate, so it was time to try making vanilla.  But, since my favorite flavor has always been chocolate chip (Grunnings chocolate chip – now extinct, and second to that Baskin Robbins), I decided to make the vanilla base, freeze half of it in the ice cream maker for about 1 and a half pints of vanilla ice cream, and then use half of the base to concoct chocolate chip ice cream.  I basically used a recipe I found on line for David Lebovitz’s vanilla ice cream.  Oh my god- both turned out great.  I served the ice cream for my son Danny’s wonderful friends, Stephanie and Emily, along with my homemade hot fudge.  Their exclamations of glee and ectasy were beyond music to my ears.  For me, I like to eat the vanilla ice cream with the hot fudge, but I enjoy the chocolate chip  without the fudge so  I can savor the contrast of the vanilla with all those chunks of bittersweet chocolate.

Vanilla Ice Cream and Chocolate Chip Ice Cream – (adapted from, “The Perfect Scoop” by David Lebovitz)

• 1 cup (250 ml) whole milk
• 3/4 cup (150 g) sugar
• 2 cups (500 ml) heavy cream
• pinch of salt
• 1 vanilla bean, split in half lengthwise
• 5 large egg yolks
• a few drops of vanilla extract (I used 1/2 teaspoon and that was perfect)

for the chocolate chip ice cream:

• • about 8 oz. bittersweet chocolate ( I used King Arthur bittersweet chips)

Heat the milk, salt, and sugar in a saucepan. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into the milk with a paring knife, then add the bean pod to the milk. Cover, remove from heat, and infuse for one hour ( I skipped this 1 hour infusing step, and the ice cream had plenty of vanilla flavor for me).

To make the ice cream, set up an ice bath by placing a 2-quart (2l) bowl in a larger bowl partially filled with ice and water. Set a strainer over the top of the smaller bowl and pour the cream into the bowl.In a separate bowl, stir together the egg yolks. Remove bean pod from milk.  Rewarm the milk then gradually pour some of the milk into the yolks, whisking constantly as you pour. Scrape the warmed yolks and milk back into the saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom with a heat-resistant spatula, until the custard thickens enough to coat the spatula and temperature is about 170 degrees.

Strain the custard into the heavy cream. Stir over the ice until cool, add the vanilla extract, then refrigerate to chill thoroughly, preferably overnight.

Pour half of the custard into your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.  I put the bowl with the other half of custard back in the fridge, covered with plastic, and churned the vanilla  for 1 hour, then spooned it into a freezer proof container, and froze it.

Then I moved on to making my chocolate chip ice cream.  I poured the remaining custard into the ice cream maker and started the machine.  Then I melted about 8 oz. of bittersweet King Arthur chocolate chips on low power in the microwave in a microwave proof bowl.  Then I stuck the bowl in the fridge to cool the chocolate a little.  After about 30 min. of churning, I started drizzling the melted chocolate right in the ice cream maker.  The chocolate froze on contact and didn’t mix in with the vanilla.  That is what I was looking for.  After I used about 1/3 of the chocolate up, I took the ice cream in the churning canister and stuck it in the freezer.  I did this because I noticed that the ice cream was getting a little melty from the chocolate.  After about 15 minutes, I took the canister out, starting churning again, and drizzled about 1/3 more of the melted chocolate right in as it was churning.  Then, I took the canister and put it in the freezer for another 10 or 15 minutes.  Then, I took it out of the freezer, started churning it again, and drizzled the remaining chocolate in as it was churning.  I probably churned for another 15-20 minutes, then transferred the ice cream to a freezer container, and froze it.  For some reason, I ended up with a lot more of the chocolate chip ice cream than the vanilla, even though I had divided the custard in half for each.  I think what happened was that the longer churning process- going in and out of the freezer resulted in creating more volume in the chocolate chip ice cream.  But the end product was beyond amazing!

I got the idea for drizzling the melted chocolate right into the ice cream as it churned from two places.  One was from reading the description of how Baskin Robbins makes their chocolate chip ice cream right on their container.  The other place I got this idea was from a blog called Technicolor Kitchen.

My daughter Randi and her husband Dan bought me an ice cream maker for my birthday last year.  I just never got around to using it until last week. I used a recipe I found for chocolate ice cream from a blog called amandascookin.com, and she got her rccipe from David Lebovitz’s book, The Perfect Scoop.  I followed the recipe she posted on her blog almost exactly.  The ice cream came out chocolaty, creamy, and absolutely delicious!  And it was very easy to make as well, which is surprising when you taste how delicious this is.

Ingredients:

2 cups heavy cream
3 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder (I used King Arthur’s Dark Dutch Cocoa)
5 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped (I used King Arthur’s Bittersweet Chocolate Chips- and I did not chop them)
1 cup whole milk
¾ cup granulated sugar
pinch of salt
5 large egg yolks (I used extra large, as that was what I had on hand)
½ teaspoon vanilla extract (I used pure)

Warm 1 cup of the cream with the cocoa powder in a medium saucepan, whisking to thoroughly blend the cocoa. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer at a very low boil for 30 seconds, whisking constantly. Remove from the heat and add the chocolate, stirring until smooth. Then stir in the remaining 1 cup cream. Pour the mixture into a large bowl, scraping the saucepan as thoroughly as possible, and set a mesh strainer on top of the bowl.

In small saucepan, warm the milk, sugar, and salt.  In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolk. Slowly pour the warm milk into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

Stir the mixture constantly over the medium heat with a heatproof spatula ( I used a wooden spoon), scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula (170°F on an instant-read thermometer). Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the chocolate mixture until smooth, then stir in the vanilla. Stir until cool over an ice bath.

Cover and chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.  (I followed the directions on my Cuisinart ice cream maker which said to churn for 30 min.) (If the cold mixture is too thick to pour into your machine, whisk it vigorously to thin it out.)  Then spoon into freezer-proof container or containers, and freeze until firm- a few hours.)