So this isn\u2019t really meant to be a food blog, but I figure I can have it do double-duty and type up another recipe to share:\u00a0 a\u00a0chocolate gelato recipe that I was given many, many years ago but never tried until now.<\/p>\n
I had purchased an ice-cream maker at Aldi a couple years ago, but was always scared away by the copious amounts of cream and large amounts of work in many of the recipes I found (and I\u2019d love to make a raspberry gelato, but that\u2019s a lot of work to get rid of the seeds!), for an end result that\u2019s not really any better than store-bought.<\/p>\n
But this recipe\u2019s different \u2014 it\u2019s a true gelato, made with milk and egg yolks, rather than cream, in which \u201cgelato\u201d truly means the authentic distinction and not just \u201cice cream so good we give it a snooty name.\u201d\u00a0 And it\u2019s not that hard and the taste is so much richer than your Breyer\u2019s or Edy\u2019s, and I\u2019m too cheap to buy Haagen Daaz (even though this gelato isn\u2019t particularly low-cost, it\u2019s at least fun to make).<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the basic recipe:<\/p>\n
4 egg yolks
3 1\/2 oz bittersweet chocolate bar
2\/3 cup sugar
1 1\/2 oz cocoa powder
2 cups milk
2 Tbsp sugar<\/p>\n
Beat the egg yolks with a whisk.\u00a0 Gradually add 2\/3 cup sugar.\u00a0 in saucepan, bring milk to a boil, remove from heat.\u00a0 When slightly cooled, very slowly add to egg yolk mixture, stirring constantly and quickly, being careful not to curdle the eggs.\u00a0 Melt chocolate in a double boiler and stir until smooth and silky.\u00a0 Pour into custard mixture and blend.\u00a0 Add cocoa powder and mix well. Pour into larger saucepan, place over medium heat (do not boil) and stir until mixture thickens slightly.\u00a0 In another saucepan, heat the 2T sugar with 2T water until a caramel is formed.\u00a0 Add this to the custard and blend well.\u00a0 Cool about\u00a01 1\/2\u00a0 hours and then add to ice cream maker.<\/p>\n
My comments:<\/p>\n
So, for starters, the original recipe says to use \u201cvery good chocolate\u201d \u2014 but I\u2019m a firm believer in using just plain chocolate.\u00a0 I started with a 70% cocoa bar, some cheap brand on sale for $1.50 at Valli, but I think that was really too dark, as for my second try I just used a plain \u201cdark chocolate\u201d bar from Aldi, and it turned out even better.\u00a0 Also note that 3.5 oz is 100 grams.<\/p>\n
The stirring until thickened was a bit tricky \u2014 the first time it took forever (I kept an eye on it with a thermometer and it was at about 175 \u2013 180 when it thickened); the second time it did start to boil because it heated up much more quickly than I expected, but it didn\u2019t seem to do any harm.<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t figure out the caramel part \u2014 the first time I burnt everything, and the second try I just ended up with recrystallized sugar.\u00a0 So I gave up, and just added an extra 2 tablespoons of sugar to the mixture.\u00a0 Then I tasted it and it still didn\u2019t seem sweet enough, so I added to 2 tbsp. more.<\/p>\n
It took much longer than 1 1\/2 hours to cool in the fridge (do they really mean cooling by putting it in the freezer?).\u00a0\u00a0 And it never really got super thick in the ice cream maker \u2014 I scurried to get it in the freezer to avoid it melting when I deemed it done enough, and I think it turned out fine in the end, but I don\u2019t know if I failed in ice cream making, or if gelato recipes just don\u2019t get very thick.\u00a0 <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So this isn\u2019t really meant to be a food blog, but I figure I can have it do double-duty and type up another recipe to share:\u00a0 a\u00a0chocolate gelato recipe that I was given many, many years ago but never tried until now. I had purchased an ice-cream maker at Aldi a couple years ago, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[68,160],"class_list":["post-681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cookingbaking","tag-recipes"],"yoast_head":"\n