So good we nearly fainted

Chocolate Ice Cream To Die For

Last week, I wrote a post about the ice cream maker crapping out at a bad moment and the emergency trip to Williams-Sonoma for a new one.
After a proper time to chill the bowl (much less than the previous bowl, by the way), I poured the custard into the frozen bowl and pressed the "on" switch.  This ice cream maker is about 100 times easier to use the the old one. You pop in the bowl, pop in the top (no weird fitting and twisting and turning and having pieces pop back off again). Pour in the mixture (a nice wide opening, too!) . Let 'er rip.
It's easy to see how the ice cream is doing, i.e., is it ice cream yet?
It was, and quicker than the previous one, too.  Things just got better and better.  I did have to find a container to put it in.  You can't store it in the bowl, and as a veteran saver of "containers," I had an old plastic  half gallon container with a lid from days of yore  that fit the bill.
Froze for 30 hours.  It was so dark and rich looking that well, it screamed for the delicate Orrefors  Illusion crystal dishes. Hand washable, and so fragile that if you look at them cross-eyed, they break.
OMG!  Never tasted anything like this.  Dark and rich and creamy and died-and-gone-to-heaven ice cream.  Worth the custard and the caramel and the hassle of five steps in a half-hour and sweating not to screw up. 
The whole table almost swooned. It was that good.
Tonight, there are two piddly helpings left, and I must remember to photograph.  Gauche to whip out the camera in the middle of a dinner party.  I will definitely be making this again.  Remember, it's in the June issue of Bon Appetit. 
Chocolate Ice Cream
Yowza!

We all scream for Ice Cream

Bon Appetit's Recipe  for Chocolate Ice Cream.  OMG!

Adventures in ice cream. 

The June Bon Appetit mag arrives about the same time I decide to have a small dinner party.  Menu finalized, and I have chosen a somewhat complicated but decadent chocolate ice cream for dessert.  Buy dark organic chocolate!  Whole milk?  I mean, who has whole milk?  The process involves about 5 fairly complicated steps executed right after each other.  Pretty much destroys the kitchen.  The chocolate custard is supposed to cool for 2 days.  So. . . . today we get home from a long arduous shopping trip, the shop and eat lunch and drink wine till you drop kind of trip, and it's time to make the ice cream which needs to "age" for two days.

A few years ago we bought an ice cream maker which was always VERY hard to assemble.  The brand shall be nameless (it has been discontinued for some time) and every time I made ice cream, not very often, it was hell on wheels to get the stupid machine put together.  Click this piece into that piece into the knee bone connected to the shoulder bone.

The ice cream was always first rate.

Today the paddle did not want to snap in, no way no how.  It had issues.  Significant Other gave it a goodly whack and the paddle snapped in except it also broke a little bit.  We got out the super glue and fixed that sucker, but when it was time to complete the assembly, well, the paddle had somehow snapped out again and did not want to go in.

So I've got seven dollars worth of chocolate custard on the counter.  To the web!  With two days to go,  I can't buy it online.   I call Williams Sonoma at Legacy Place and they have a Cuisinart there.  We race over through rush hour traffic. Time is of the essence, because I know from experience that the bowl has to chill for, like, days.

Mission accomplished.  The ice cream maker is even on sale for Father's Day.  We do some shopping at Whole Foods and get into a huge traffic mess going home.  Plus every gas station advertising cheap gas means "for cash."  We pull in and out of half the stations on Route 1.  Stop at Stop 'n Shop for the on-sale cherries and a few more items.  The sun has set.  Race home and I pop the bowl into the freezer and put the getting long in  the tooth chocolate custard in the far corner of the fridge.  The bowl should be cold in 24 hours.  The party is in forty-eight. 

I'll let  you know how the ice cream turns out.  The chocolate custard tastes remarkable.  Deep and rich and not too sweet.

My favorite flavor is rum raisin, although once I ate some Grand Marnier ice cream that almost made me change my mind.  We whipped up some Port Wine ice cream in house that was also pretty remarkable. 

Well, time to chill, in more ways than one.  Never a dull moment here chez Grapeshot.  And thank you, friendly helpful folks at Williams Sonoma.   By the way, the best pot roast recipe ever was devised by Chuck Williams.  Just thought you might want to know.

Onward.