If you don’t know by now, I’m a major chocoholic. I practically inhale the stuff, and there are always a couple of family blocks in the freezer.  I’m known by name at the Starbucks near Miss G’s school, and they can almost recite my order. Even Miss G has inherited my great chocolate love, she orders her own chocolate frappuccino or ‘warm chocolate’ from the barista’s.

One of my other sweet food crushes is ice cream. A tub of rainbow Paddle Pop is frequently seen in our freezer, as is one of my new faves; Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie. Even though I’m very partial to a scoop of salted caramel when we’re at the shops, a dark chocolate ice cream will always try to catch my eye.

I like chocolate ice cream when it’s done right, it’s so easy to taste artificial and not very close to actual chocolate at all. I want my ice cream to be oozing chocolate flavour with every spoon, and I want it to be so creamy it clings to your tongue.
We all know I love a good no-churn ice cream recipe, this is my 3rd one on the blog. This ice cream has 4 common ingredients. That’s right, only 4! It’s a derivative of my ‘Hawthorn’ Chocolate Honeycomb Ice Cream and my Rockmelon Ice Cream, but the difference with this one is that it requires a little bit of heating up.

This ice cream is rich without being fatty, chocolatey without being too sweet, and is both firm and scoopable at the same time. CTO liked the texture (it’s smooth!) and Miss G loved the taste. I loved the velvety smoothness, as well as the hint of bitterness from the dark chocolate.

Condensed milk heated up with chocolate, then cooled before folding it in to a mixture of whipped cream and vanilla. I used half 76% dark chocolate and half 56% dark milk chocolate, but you can easily use a 70% for all of it.

WARNING! THIS IS A VERY LICKABLE RECIPE! I dipped a spoon into the still warm pot of fudge, licked the beaters when I had finished folding all the ingredients together (unplugged and detached, of course. Safety first!), slurped on the dripping chocolatey whisk, and walked around with an ice cream covered spatula after I finished scraping the mix into the tub to freeze. It was soooo good!

If you’re going to try only 1 recipe from my page, make it this one. It’s quick to make, made with easy-to-get ingredients, and perfect for chocolate lovers of all ages.

Chocolate Ice Cream

Time: 30 min, plus freezing time

Yield: 1-1.2lt

• 200g good quality dark chocolate
• 395g/400g condensed milk, skim or full cream
• 600ml thickened cream, full cream
• 1 tsp vanilla essence

In a small saucepan on low heat, whisk the chocolate with the condensed milk until melted together and smooth. Remove from heat and set aside to cool down.

In a large mixing bowl and using an electric hand mixer, beat the cream and vanilla on high speed until whipped to stiff peaks. Refrigerate whilst waiting for chocolate to cool.

Once chocolate has reached room temperature and fudge-like consistency, add to cream and beat with the mixer on low speed to combine. Use a spatula to scrape and fold in the last bits.

Pour into mould, then freeze until set.

Notes: If you have any fudge left in the saucepan that didn’t scrape out, spoon it on top of the pre-frozen ice cream and use a skewer to feather it through. It gives the ice cream a light fudge swirl.

If you are using a tin like me, make sure you line it with wax paper first.

To make sure your cream is stiff enough, you can give it the ‘Helmet Test’ as mentioned in my Vanilla Buttermilk Waffles post.