Chocolate Stout Ice Cream

October 20, 2009 at 6:28 am · Filed under dessert ·Tagged 2009 baking project, beer ice cream, blogtoberfest, brooklyn brewery, desserts with beer, October baking project, Recipes

Part two of the weekend beer ice cream extravaganza.

Ice cream is a forbidden item on my grocery shopping list. If I buy it, then chances are it will be gone the next day. Dryers, Ben and Jerry’s, even the cheap stuff from Safeway – it doesn’t matter. It’s one of those few, special dessert items where I lack any semblance of self control.

I’m hoping that I can get some people to come over next weekend and polish off the rest of this beer ice cream sitting in my freezer. Although, next weekend might be too late. The next installment in my weekend of beer ice cream madness is almost gone.

My second batch of beer ice cream, after the peach and strawberry lambic sorbet, revisited the chocolate/stout flavors I used in the Guinness Oreos. But this time I took my commenter’s advice and used an actual chocolate stout – Brooklyn’s Brewery’s Black Chocolate Stout, to be exact – as the basis for the dessert. The beer really calls out to be used as a dessert item. It’s lovely stuff, but it was so rich and dark, with prominent chocolate notes, that I could barely drink a bottle on my own.

I used this David Lebovitz recipe for milk chocolate Guinness ice cream as a jumping off point for my ice cream. I made only minor changes – substituting the chocolate stout for Guinness, and cutting down on the sweetness by using half milk chocolate and half bittersweet chocolate.

The final ice cream has a rich, sweet chocolate flavor that’s accented by the yeasty flavor of the beer. Flavor wise, I loved it – you could taste the stout, but it didn’t overpower the chocolate – it was nicely balanced. But I had some problems texture-wise; the chocolate didn’t quite incorporate with the custard, and the ice cream had a slightly silty texture. While not entirely unpleasant, the ice cream didn’t have that perfectly smooth creaminess that I hoped to achieve. And I’m really not sure what went wrong – although I suspect I may have cooked the custard for a tad too long.

Still, I would make this again in a heartbeat. Chocolate, chocolate stout, cream – what is there not to love? It’s a recipe that deserves to be perfected. Now if I could only find someone to take the rest of this batch off my hands.

That beer should really be sold in the "dessert" section of the grocery store.

Chocolate Stout Ice Cream
Adapted from The Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accompaniments by David Lebovitz, copyright © 2007. Found via The Kitchn.
Makes approximately one quart

Ingredients
3.5 oz milk chocolate, finely chopped
3.5 oz bittersweet 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 chocolate stout
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Place milk and bittersweet chocolate bits in a large bowl and set a mesh strainer over the top.

Warm the milk, sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer over the milk chocolate, then stir until the chocolate is melted. Once the mixture is smooth, whisk in the cream, then the chocolate stout and vanilla. Stir until cool over an ice bath.

Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

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