Since I bought a pile of new cookbooks a few weeks ago, I’ve been doing my best to test out as many of the recipes as I can. Lucky for me, my carnivorous boyfriend doesn’t mind going veg every once in a while, which makes dinners at our house pretty easy most of the time. But last week I decided to push aside my vegan creations and go full cream for this Guinness Chocolate Ice Cream recipe from my new favourite book of indulgences, The Perfect Scoop. One of the party goers from Luke’s birthday celebration had left behind a few cans of Guinness beer, and I thought it was fate when I happened to open the page to this recipe the morning after the party.
Even though I’m not a fan of Guinness, I thought this would be a great opportunity to use up the extra beer. Guinness and chocolate is an interesting concept for a dessert recipe, and I have to admit that I was pretty skeptical of it. But I figured worst case was that I’d feed the pint of ice cream to Luke and our housemate Rick, which would at least earn me some roomie brownie points.
As it turns out, I didn’t need to worry. At all. The recipe calls for an entire bar of milk chocolate, which when paired with the beer creates this deep, rich flavour that totally amplifies the chocolate taste. In short, it was unreal ice cream, and possibly the best chocolate scoop I’ve ever had. That may not mean much coming from a lactose intolerant girl, but back in the day I used to eat my fair share of ice cream (and suffer for it later). When I shared the last bits of the ice cream with some houseguests a few days later, every last drop of it was licked clean from the spoons. It’s not just me, this stuff is insanely good, and I dare you to only eat one scoop. Happy hump day, friendies!
Ingredients:
- 200 g (7 oz) milk chocolate, finely chopped
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1/2 cup sugar
- pinch of salt
- 4 large egg yolks
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 3/4 cup Guinness
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Directions:
- Put the chocolate bits in a large bowl and set a mesh strainer over top.
- Warm the milk (not cream! just milk! I made this error… it wasn’t that bad though), sugar and salt in a medium saucepan. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks*. Once the milk mixture is warm (do not boil! Just warm it so that some steam rises from the pot), pour it over the egg yolks, whisking constantly. Once incorporate, pour the entire mixture back into the saucepan.
- Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat, scraping the bottom of the pot as you stir, until the mixture creates a thick custard.
- Pour the custard through the strainer into the chocolate. You may have to use your spatula to scrape the custard through the strainer, as mine was a bit thick, but it will eventually all go through.
- Stir until the chocolate is melted. Once smooth, whisk the cream in, and then the Guinness and vanilla. Refrigerate until fully cooled.
- Freeze the ice cream according to your ice cream maker’s instructions. Alternatively, if you don’t have an ice cream maker, toss it in the freezer and hope for the best. I’m kidding. I think it’d be fine if you just froze it straight (my ice cream maker melted halfway through, so I basically did this), and when you want to eat it, just take it out of the freezer about 15 minutes before eating.
*If like me you hate wasting food, here’s an idea: put the egg whites in a separate container when you separate them from the yolks, and use them for macarons! I’ve yet to perfect mine after three batches, but when I do I have my eye on this Snickers Macaron recipe. Mmm.
(Recipe by David Lebovitz)
