Chocolate Marzipan Ice Cream
The idea for Chocolate Marzipan Ice Cream arose after I’d bought the marzipan for almond cake. In truth, I’d also bought a package of that chocolate-coated marzipan that appears in specialty shops at holiday time. Once home, I wondered what to do with it. Do people just eat it out of hand? While this seemed an appealing idea, surely there was more one could do with it. One morning, while half-awake, it hit me: ice cream.
Some of my best ideas come to me while half-asleep. At first I thought vanilla ice cream. And Vanilla Marzipan Ice Cream is hardly a bad idea. But hey, it’s the holidays, right? Why not chocolate? Continuing with the celebratory theme, I opted for a custard-style ice cream. I mean, now’s the time to go all out, right?
For the record, there are two ways to make ice cream. David Lebovitz, in his excellent The Perfect Scoop, explains it thus:
There are two styles of ice cream: French-style, which is a cooked custard made with egg yolks, and Philadelphia-style, made with cream or a combination of cream and milk, but without eggs.
Custard freaks people out. It’s like mayonnaise. Omigod, eggs. While this recipe requires attention, that doesn’t mean it’s difficult. When I first began making ice cream, I did not possess an ice cream maker. Nor did I know custards were supposed to intimidate So I blithely went ahead and made them. There was never any trouble. Just don’t crank your oven burner above a medium flame. Whisk constantly. Heaven forfend something goes amiss and you scramble your eggs. It’s okay. The earth won’t fall off its axis. Yeah, it sucks that you wasted eggs, but you know what? Worse things happened last week. Way worse things. Pat yourself on the back for trying and start over. Anyone spending any time in the kitchen is bound to screw up. Let me tell you about cracking eggs: I am so pathetically bad at it. Bits of shell always fall into the bowl and I have to pluck them out. When I made this ice cream, which asks you separate the yolk from the white, I managed to drop an entire egg down the garbage disposal. I felt like such an idiot. And I call myself a food blogger?
Well, I fetched another egg from the fridge and carried on. Like I said, way worse things happened last week. I don’t know about you, but given the news these days, I feel stupidly grateful just to be talking about something like ice cream.
So, this chocolate ice cream recipe is adapted from David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop; did I mention this is a fabulous book? It’s a fabulous book.
Before launching into the recipe, let’s talk still freezing a moment. Still-freezing may be defined as making ice cream without a machine. I divided this recipe: half the custard got poured into four 6-ounce bowls, which were covered with plastic wrap and popped in the freezer. The remainder of the custard got an overnight chill in the fridge before going into my ice cream maker, which was fifty bucks well-spent.
The results: the still-frozen bowls of ice cream are rock-hard and gelato-like in texture, whereas the machine-made ice cream is airer and softer, even after a night in the freezer’s coldest spot. Both taste wonderful, so for those of you with the option, it’s really down to personal preference. I prefer the still-frozen’s dense texture, which I feel works well with the bittersweet chocolate’s intensity.
This ice cream is very, very rich. So before you all start howling about six ounces being a measly portion, try knocking down a big old bowlful.
I feel compelled to add that this ice cream is made of few ingredients. Buy the best dairy, eggs, and chocolate you can afford–you’ll notice the difference here.
Chocolate Marzipan Ice Cream
Adapted from David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop
Makes 1 Quart
2 cups heavy cream
3 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa (I use Droste)
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into small pieces
1 cup milk or half and half
3/4 cup sugar (scant)
pinch salt
5 large egg yolks, ready in a medium bowl with a whisk either resting in bowl or within reach.
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
4 ounces marzipan, rolled into pea-sized balls
Read this recipe all the way through before starting (a good practice at all times, but especially here). Note that it is critical to have all your ingredients measured and ready to go in this recipe, as there isn’t time while preparing to stop and “catch up.” I’m not trying to scare you. This isn’t a difficult recipe, but it’s not one with any pauses.
You’ll need to have an ice bath ready. I don’t have an ice maker, so I line a 4-quart bowl with ice packs and leave it in the fridge. Do whatever is easiest for you.
In a medium, heavy bottomed saucepan, warm 1 cup of the heavy cream with the cocoa. Whisk constantly until blended, bringing to a gentle boil. Turn down to a low boil for 30 seconds, whisking all the while.
Remove from heat. Add the chocolate. I find switching to a large metal or wooden spoon easiest for this step. Stir constantly, until chocolate is melted. Add the rest of the heavy cream, stirring to blend.
Pour the mixture into a large bowl. Scrape the pan with a spatula. It will be messy, and you won’t be able to get all the chocolate out. That’s okay. Set a strainer into the bowl, right into your creamy chocolate.
Warm the milk, sugar, and salt in the pan. Keep the heat very low. Whisk your eggs. Returning to the pan of warm milk, pour slowly into the bowl, whisking all the while. By pouring slowly and whisking constantly, you will avoid scrambling the eggs.
Pour the milky egg mixture back into the pan. Using a heatproof spatula, whisk, or wooden spoon, stir constantly over medium heat, scraping the bottom of the pan, until the mixture thickens.You may also notice it lightens in color a bit. This will take 2-4 minutes, but be patient. By now the pan will look a mess. That’s okay.
Once the custard is ready, pour it through the strainer into the bowl of waiting creamy chocolate mixture. Stir until blended. Add the almond extract. Almond extract is powerful stuff. Don’t go overboard on it. Now put this bowl into your ice bath and stir until the custard cools. Relax. The hard part is over.
This unlovely but useful photo depicts cooled custard resting it an ice bath, pre-freezer, pre-ice cream maker.
If you are still freezing, ladle the custard into the freezer safe vessel or vessels of your choice, add the marzipan, and cover well with plastic wrap, and freeze for at least 4 hours. When I still-froze in the bowls, I added five pea-sized pieces of marzipan per portion. If you are freezing the entire batch, 4 ounces of marzipan, broken up into pea-sized bits, seemed ample to me both still-frozen and when added to the ice-cream machine. If you are a person who loves additions to ice cream, add the entire tube.
If you are making this with an ice cream maker, chill the custard at least 4 hours in the refrigerator, covered, preferably overnight. It may thicken. That’s okay. Once it is thoroughly chilled, make it in the machine following the manufacturer’s instructions.
If, like me, you struggle with pouring soft-serve ice cream from the freezer bowl into its intended storage vessel, do as I did and have your ice bath ready again. Placing your storage vessel into the icy bowl makes the entire tipping/scraping performance far less anxiety-inducing.
As homemade ice cream lacks commercial preservatives and stabilizers it doesn’t keep well beyond about a week, growing icy and rather gummy. But I doubt this will present a problem.
Notes:
Despite my purchase of chocolate-covered marzipan, I opted to use the more commonly found baking marzipan, available in 7-ounce tubes. In addition to being highly pliant, those who prefer a high “stuff” ratio in their ice creams may add more than 4 ounces.
Any leftover marzipan can be frozen, well-wrapped, for your next baking or ice cream making adventure.
A highly unprofessional method of breaking up chocolate bars entails attacking the wrapped bar with a meat tenderizer, your merciless fingers, or a rolling pin.
You could, of course, make this using that chocolate covered marzipan available now. You can also play with flavors-vanilla, coffee, ricotta–the permutations are endless.
Above: still-frozen Chocolate Marzipan Ice Cream
Below, Chocolate Marzipan Ice Cream made in an ice-cream maker.
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