BSI: Chocolate (Entry 2: Chocolate Covered Coffee Bean Ice Cream)

Chocolate inspirations left and right this week for BSI, being hosted by London Foodie in NY!

In case you missed it, my first entry was Banana Boats. This is the second entry - another homemade ice cream. Both Johnny and I agree that it's our favorites of the ones we've made so far!

We followed the recipe for Coffee Ice Cream from Perfect Scoop, but as an extra somethin' somethin' included cut up chocolate covered coffee beans!

(Makes 1 quart)

1 1/2 cups whole milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups whole coffee beans (we used decaf)
pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
5 large egg yolks
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp finely ground coffee
1/2 cup chopped chocolate covered coffee beans

Because of the inclusion of egg yolks, this was also the most labor intensive of the recipes we've made so far!

Warm the milk, sugar, whole coffee beans, pinch of salt (see below), and 1/2 cup of the cream in a medium sauce pan. Once warm, remove from heat and let steep at room temperature for 1 hour. (Oh. Em. Gee. The smell!!!)

Johnny got to whip out his "pinch" measuring spoon for this one, too! (He's a measurer, I'm not.)

Pour the remaining 1 cup cream in a large bowl and place a mesh strainer on top. In a separate, medium bowl whisk together the egg yolks (the pic has a little cream around the edge because we swapped bowls!) . Rewarm the coffee-infused milk mixture.

Slowly pour the warm mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly so you don't cook the yolks. Pour everything back into the saucepan and over medium heat, stir constantly until a spatula is coated.

Pour the custard through the mesh strainer, pressing down and moving the beans around to extract as much flavor as possible. (We found it helpful to scoop some of the cream from below over top the coffee beans periodically to loosen up the custard mixture) Discard the beans, mix in the vanilla and finely ground coffee and stir until cool over an ice bath.

Chill the mixture and freeze per your machine's instructions.

We froze for about 15 minutes, then added the 1/2 cup chopped chocolate covered coffee beans for the final 4 or 5 minutes.

This smells, looks, and tastes delicious. It's rich, creamy, and full of hearty coffee flavor. The ice cream alone would be delicious, but the crunchy, chocolatey bits in there give it an extra level of flavor and texture.

Don't forget to head over to Hey What's for Dinner Mom? tomorrow to vote for my Best Foodie Fotos (BFF) in Laura's contest!!!