No-Churn, No-Cook, Practically No-Effort Chocolate Ice-Cream (That's as good as Ben & Jerry's)

Yes, I promised it to some Facebookers and so I shall deliver a recipe for no-churn, no-machine, no-pulling-out-of-the-freezer-every-two-hours-to-mix, no-custard, no-cook, little-effort chocolate ice-cream that is soft and rich with no ice crystals!

I thought seeing as Valentine's day is around the corner it's time to begin the chocolate recipe fest! Also, this recipe will be updated with a video once I have edited it, so stay tuned!

This ice-cream is rich, chocolatey, and completely customisable, made mainly from two ingredients with anything else you want to add for frills. The great thing about this recipe is that the ingredients are cheap enough, it only uses one mixing bowl, and you just bung it in the freezer for 4 to 6 hours without having to do anything to it while it freezes.

Ice-cream that tastes as nice as the leading luxury brand for cheap, minimum effort and hardly any washing up. Every woman's dream I would have thought, except having to wait around for it to freeze. But you could always make it before you head to work so it'll be ready for your return...




FREE FROM
☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Gluten
☑ Wheat
☑ Eggs
☑ Nuts

CONTAINS
☒ Dairy
☒ Refined sugar products
☒ Cocoa (yes, I thought I'd contain it because I was allergic to cocoa for a time)


INGREDIMENTS

• 8 fluid ounces (225 millilitres, 1 US cup) whipping cream, 35%-40% fat content
• 6 fluid ounces (170 millilitres, ¾ US cup) condensed milk
• 3 tablespoons (45 millilitres) cocoa powder (see notes below)
• Pinch of salt
• Optional a
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) espresso powder

HOW-TO

• In a large mixing bowl, pour the condensed milk. Add the cocoa powder and salt and mix well. 
• If you like, you can also add the cinnamon and espresso powder for added taste interest. You can leave it out if you prefer.
• Pour in the cream, while stirring, then stir until it is all combined.
• Using an electric hand mixer, whisk until it is light and a soft-peak consistency. You want to to look and feel like chocolate mousse, basically.
• Pour into a 2 pint (560 millilitre, 2½ US cup) pudding mould with a lid (or you can use a loaf tin and cover with cling film) and smooth out the surface. Cover and freeze for 4 to 6 hours.
• Allow to temper for about 5 to 10 minutes before serving. Serve as a sundae with syrups, sprinkles and other nice things, on its own, or with cake.

NOTES

• You can adjust the amount of cocoa powder to your liking, but always have at least 3 tablespoons and no more than 7 tablespoons (105 millilitres, two-fifths US cup)
• If cocoa powder is too rich and dark for you, you could use drinking chocolate powder, or a combination.
• Before freezing, you can gently fold in sweets or sprinkles. You could also gently marble in some syrup.

The idea of making ice-cream by mixing whipping cream and condensed milk together is quite common. Every single brand of condensed milk with have a version of the recipe on their website, Nigella Lawson uses this technique to make coffee ice-cream and pomegranate ice-cream, and every food blogger ever has had their own twist on it. But I like to think that I've found the best ratio of milk to cream for the softest, least icy and most luxurious ice-cream ever. Don't quote me on that, mind.

This makes about 1½ pints (850 millilitres, 3½ US cups) of ice-cream, which is enough to feed about 6 people with a sensible scoop or two, 4 people with a generous scoop or three, or one woman recently bereaved of her romantic partner/suffering with her time of the month... so gentlemen if you want to keep her quiet when she's in pain just make her a batch of this. She will love you forever, if that's what you want of course.

The ingredients to make this amount of ice-cream is roughly €3. So, to put it in understandable terms, a tub of Ben and Jerry's costs around €6.50: for half of the price, you can make almost twice as much yourself... which in the long run makes it quarter of the price. You know it makes sense!

Homemade Condensed Milk

Like I said in my post on homemade ice cream, I make my own condensed milk, you know... because I can.

I attempted to make condensed milk many years ago when I went through my last hunt for the perfect ice cream, and also when I learnt about making vanilla fudge and butter tablet using the glorious stuff, but it wasn't successful. It caught on the saucepan and burnt, and left me with little brown bitter bits in the finished product. It wasn't nice.

However, this time around I found this recipe, which is much simpler than many of the slow-cooking methods I've found online. However, it is high-maintenance. This was my starting point, but when I made it I found it didn't have exactly the right consistency.


The recipe I developed from this uses a tad more sugar, but only to make it mathematically work. The recipe I use now is simple: 1 ounce weight of sugar for every 4 fluid ounces of full-fat milk.

You may have guessed, I'm a fan of formulas, and also a fan of the imperial system. This works out as 30 grammes of sugar for every 120 millilitres of full-fat milk.

So, here she goes!



FREE FROM
☑ Soya
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat
☑ Eggs
☑ Gluten

CONTAINS
☒ Dairy (obviously)
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS

• 1 pint (570 millilitres) full-fat milk
• 5 ounces (140 grammes) caster sugar
• 1 pinch baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)

HOW-TO

• In a large, heavy bottomed saucepan, bring the milk to a boil.
• Once boiling, add in the sugar and soda in one go and stir until dissolved. Reduce the heat to low when it reaches the boil again, and simmer gently.
• Simmer on a low heat for about 20 minutes, stirring very frequently. Don't leave it un-stirred for any longer than 2 minutes at a time. This is quite time consuming, but necessary.
• Cook until it has reduced to a third of its original volume. If you want to be pendantic, you can weigh it, subtracting the weight of the saucepan: it should weigh 9 ounces (250 grammes).
• Another way to test its doneness is to keep a saucer in the fridge. When it comes close to being ready, drop a teaspoonful of the milk onto the chilled saucer, and tilt it. If it runs like it should - thick but still pourable - it's done.
• Allow to cool completely, then pour into a sterilised jar. Store in the fridge for up to a week.

Apologies for the photo, it looked in focus on the little camera screen! Oopsies...