Chocolate Hazelnut Ice Cream

A smooth, sweet and rich chocolate ice cream, designed to kill those Ben and Jerry’s cravings. With hazelnut chunks throughout, and a simple make at home recipe, you’ll be wondering why you’ve not tried to make your own ice cream before!

Last summer I was lucky enough to be asked to hold on to my Mum’s ice cream machine whilst she packed up her house, preparing to go and teach abroad for a while. I could not have been more excited! Homemade ice cream is just the best; if you’ve never tried it, the best way I could explain it is like this – imagine unlimited flavour options, in a sweet, thick, creamy gelato style ice cream.

Then, really soon after came the Bake Off episode all about ‘free from’ baking. I was so excited! They were making a dairy free Artic Roll, and I began thinking of all of the different flavour combinations they could do… and to be honest, I felt slightly disappointed that almost all of them used coconut milk, and one of the biggest ‘challenges’ they had was trying to cover up the coconut flavour!

In this ice cream, we’re using hazelnut milk to full effect; it perfectly compliments the rich chocolate, and we’re adding some chopped hazelnuts for crunch. The end result is perfect – as smooth and creamy as a real Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, and as rich, chocolatey and sweet too. We cheat slightly by strictly making a frozen custard; full dairy ice cream is made by adding whipped cream to a custard, but in the interest of getting a thick, rich, and smooth ice cream at the end, we’re simply going to just churn it as it is.

The ice cream can be made either with or without an ice cream machine. I would definitely advise you all to go out and buy a cheap (£20!) machine, where you freeze the container, then pour in the custard, and turn on the motor. However, if I can’t convince you to do that, then you can make this the old fashioned way, stirring the ice cream vigorously every hour for 3 hours as it freezes up. The results are still good, but you will get more ice crystals then you would in a machine.

Now I’m just waiting for summer; think strawberry and honeycomb, or eton mess ice cream…At least summers not too far away now!

Takes 25 minutes, plus churning and freezing time. Makes enough to serve 4 generously.

Ingredients:

• 3 egg yolks
• 1 whole egg
• 110g golden caster sugar
• 1 tsp cornflour
• 440ml hazelnut milk
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 3tsp hazelnut essence (I use Monin)
• 50g blanched hazelnuts, roughly chopped (or bashed with a rolling pin!)

1. Make the custard base. Heat the hazelnut milk up in a saucepan over a low to medium heat. You want to get the point that the milk is almost about to boil.
2. Mean while, add the eggs to a bowl and whisk with the sugar and cornflour until thick and frothy.
3. When the milk has come to temperature, very very slowly whisk the milk into the eggs. Pour really slowly at first, whisking all the time, then slowly increase the pouring speed until all the milk is with the eggs – still whisking constantly!
4. Pour the custard back into the saucepan, and heat gently. Add the cocoa and hazelnut essence, and with a wooden spoon gently mix all the time until the mixture comes a slow boil. By this time it should have thickened nicely and coat the back of the wooden spoon.
5. 
6. Remove from the heat, and put into another container to cool. The custard can now sit in the fridge for up to 3 days if needed.
7. Make the ice cream following your ice cream machine instructions, mixing in the hazelnuts at the end.
8. If you do not have an ice cream machine, put the custard and hazelnuts in a freezer proof container and freeze for about 1 hour. After this time, put the ice cream into a bowl and beat hard for a few minutes. Freeze again for another hour, repeat the beating process, repeat all over again (so the ice cream has been frozen for 3 hours at this point) and then freeze completely.