Chocolate Chambord and White Chip Ice Cream

This Chocolate and baileys gelato from The Shoebox Kitchen was ALMOST an epic fail. But as we all know, almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

First, I'm not exactly certain what gelato is.  It seems like it has to do with how slow it is churned?  Since I churned this like anything else,  I guess it is ice cream, except that it doesnt have cream so its not. Let's just say it's a frozen dairy concoction as Iced Skim Milk doesn't have as nice of a ring to it.

Sure the recipe says to use whole milk and heavy cream, but, I know this is going to come as a complete and udder shock to you...I used skim.  I am nothing if not consistent.  I also used Chambord instead of Baileys.  I would have loved to use Baileys because Baileys ice cream is da bomb.  But, sadly, no Baileys in the house.  We had Malibu, Kahlua, and Chambord.  Malibu sounded gross, and while Mrblocko would have LUVed the Kahlua version, Blockette and I would have liked it not so much.  So raspberry yumalicious Chambord it was.

Now the Chambord got all weird when it hit the heat. It was almost like it turned into gritty candy.  A gritty candy that wasn't pleasant tasting.  I have no idea what it was that made it get all weird like that. Maybe the coloring was the culprit?  The booze was old?  I have no luck boiling things other than water?  Your guess is as good as mine.

I had already committed myself to making this ice cream, so I strained the chambord-sugar-milk mixture before combining it with the chocolatey milk mixture.  I gave it a taste test before I sent it to the fridge to chill and it seemed good.  Really good.

I was still worried the texture would be off.  Maybe the strainer didn't catch all the weird gritty bits?  I wanted to do something to counter act the potential non smoothness of the end product.

Earlier in the week I had made bars that were supposed to have white chocolate drizzled on top.  The chocolate seized up as I was drizzling it and refused to attach itself to the bars. I thought I could salvage the chocolate for some other purpose so I just picked off the stubborn white chocolate from the bars.  This ice cream seemed like the perfect use for the wonky chocolate.  White chocolate is best buddies with raspberry.  So I chopped up the white chocolate into fine little bits about half the size (or smaller) of mini chocolate chips.  I added the white chocolate bits to the ice cream in the last 5 minutes of the churning process.

One nice side effect of using booze in ice cream is that your ice cream never fully solidifies.  It remains nice and scoop-able even after a week in the chill chest. No worries about ruining your plastic ice cream containers here!

The ice cream tasted just heavenly.  If there were any texture issues, the white chocolate bits hid them well.  I thought this ice cream was incredibly rich.  I can only imagine how much richer it would taste if I had used cream! 

P.S. Mrblocko wants me to tell you that this is his most favorite ice cream that I have made so far.  Which, I think is saying something because I think all the ice creams I've made have kicked butt.


Chocolate and Baileys Gelato from The Shoebox Kitchen
2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup Baileys Irish Cream (oh yeah)
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup turbinado sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
Pinch of salt

Before you get started, make an ice bath by placing ice cubes in a large mixing bowl, adding water, then placing another smaller mixing bowl into the bath. The smaller mixing bowl should be able to hold about 6 cups of liquid. Measure out your liquids. Measure out your sugar and cocoa powder, as well as your corn starch. In a mixing bowl, pour your whole milk, salt, corn starch, and cocoa powder. Whisk vigorously to combine and dissolve the solids as much as possible. Make sure there is no dry cocoa left floating in the mixture. Set aside.

Bring the two creams and sugar to a hard simmer in a medium heavy bottom saucepan, whisking frequently. Remove from heat and add the whole milk mixture. Whisk to mix thoroughly, then return to heat and bring back to a hard simmer, whisking constantly. Once simmering, continue to whisk and cook the mixture for another 5 minutes, or until you feel the mixture thickening (much like making a pudding). Transfer the chocolatey amazingness to your ice bath bowl and continue to whisk until you see no more steam coming from the amazingness. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate until cooled completely, about 4 hours or overnight (when we’re really impatient we sneak it into the freezer for about an hour). Churn the mixture in your ice cream maker according to the instructions, usually about 20 minutes. Transfer to a chilled container (we like using ceramic loaf pans – they are the perfect size and their shape allows for easier scooping) and place in the freezer overnight (if you can wait).