Decadent Chocolate Ice Cream and Other Memorial Day Weekend Deliciousness

I'm still full.  Memorial Day weekend was filled with fun food adventures and lots of calories.  Hubby even got involved and helped make some of our new food projects.  We made several dishes we have never made before, including...

Barbecued Baby Back Ribs

KFC Cole Slaw
(will post details and the recipe later this week)

Grilled Ahi Tuna

Very Berry Frozen Yogurt

Sneak Preview!  Buttermilk Donuts with Chocolate Glaze, Cinnamon Sugar and Fresh Blueberry Glaze
(details and recipe to be featured on the blog in mid July when I host this recipe for the new Club Baked online baking group...more info to come on Club Baked in a post later this week)

And lastly, we finished the weekend with this very decadent chocolate ice cream.
 

Decadent is an understatement.  This ice cream is unbelivably rich and creamy and deep dark chocolately.  It reminds me a lot of the ice cream base for Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie, but so much creamier.  I'm now a little worried about having an ice cream maker in the house knowing this sort of deliciousness is at my fingertips.  This recipe however, was not as easy breezy as the very berry frozen yogurt.  The frozen yogurt literally took 10 minutes to put together and pour into the machine.  The decadent chocolate ice cream took about 45 minutes to prepare and then 2 - 2 1/2 hours of chilling in time in the fridge before it was ready to go into the machine.  It was worth the effort and the wait.   

Now clearly, I need to hit the gym....so I can eat more ice cream.

Decadent Chocolate Ice Cream
adapted from Cuisinart.com

1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 1/3 cups heavy cream
1 vanilla bean (I omitted and added additional vanilla extract)
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup Dutch process cocoa (if you use good quality cocoa, you can easily use only 1/2 cup)
2 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (I used 1 1/2 tsp)
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped (I used 6 ounces)

Combine milk and cream in a medium sauce pan and heat on low.  Split the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape out the seeds with a knife and place the seeds and vanilla bean pod into the milk/cream mixture and simmer on low heat for 30 minutes.  Discard vanilla bean.  Because I omitted the vanilla bean step I simply brought my milk/cream mixture to a simmer while I was preparing the remaining ingredients.

In a medium bowl combine sugar, cocoa, eggs, yolk and vanilla extract and mix on low with hand mixer until mix until thick.  Remove 1 cup of the hot milk/cream mixture and slowly stream into the egg mixture while mixing on low speed.  Place chopped chocolate into the remaining hot milk/cream mixture in the pan and stir until melted.  Stream in the egg mixture into the pan.  Turn heat to low and cook mixture, stirring constantly, until thickened, resembling a pudding, about 10 minutes.   Remove from heat and immediately transfer to a medium/large bowl and cover surface of the mixture with plastic wrap so that no air touches the mixture.  Refrigerate until completely cooled, about 2 hours.

Pour the chilled custard into ice cream maker and process according to manufacturer instructions.

Yields 1 1/2 quarts.