Homemade Chocolate Ice Cream

Chris experimented with chocolate ice cream recipes and finally settled on just adding cocoa to the vanilla recipe we always use. He tried using baking squares but he wasn't satisfied with the end result and said it had a waxy feel to it. After making it quite a number of times he decided that 3/4 cup of cocoa is the perfect amount. It's so yummy I want some just posting about it;)

You can of course add anything you want, but we've added Oreo's (2 1/2 sleeves out of the big Costco box) to make a Chocolate Cookies and Cream as well as marshmallows (because I love Rocky Road but always pick out the nuts).

Homemade Chocolate Ice Cream
4 eggs
2 1/2 cups sugar
5 cups whole milk
3 cups whipping cream
3/4 cup cocoa
2 1/2 tbsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt

Beat eggs until light. Add sugar and continue to beat until thick. Mix the cocoa and milk together until the cocoa is dissolved. Then add the whipping cream, vanilla and salt and mix well. Pour into a 4 quart freezer and place in ice cream maker, surround with ice and rock salt and allow to mix. Check periodically and add more ice as necessary.

*Note: If you have a 5 or 6 quart machine, then use 6 cups whole milk, 4 cups whipping cream and 1 cup of cocoa.

**Note: If you are concerned about Salmonella you have 2 options. You can substitute the eggs with an egg substitute such as Egg Beaters (follow instructions on carton). You can also heat the egg/milk mixture to 160 degrees F slowly then cool it quickly in the fridge or freezer.

Hot Fudge Sauce

So I've been a slacker and haven't posted a recipe in over a month...I've got lots saved in my drafts, but I just haven't gotten to posting any of them. But since I've been seriously obsessed with this hot fudge sauce for the last couple weeks I thought it was only fair to share the wealth and post the recipe!

I have been searching for a good hot fudge sauce recipe since I started making "The Bomb Brownies"...I've tried a few, but haven't been happy with them, then I remembered reading this post and I decided to try it.

The original recipe called for Carnation Evaporated Milk, but since I didn't have any and it was late at night and we just had to have hot fudge sauce on our vanilla ice cream I decided to improvise! I'm going to have to make it with the evaporated milk to see which one I like better, but let's just say I'm LOVING it just the way I made it...in fact I can't get enough of it and I've been craving it every day since - so much so that I had to run to the store to get some store bought ice cream when we ran out of the good stuff! Sadly it's not as good with the store bought ice cream, but I'll take what I can get;)

Hot Fudge Sauce
1 1/2 cups of butter (3 sticks for those of us in the US of A)
1 1/2 cups of whipping cream (or 1 - 12 ounce can of Carnation evaporated milk)
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup + 2 tbsp cocoa
7 1/2 cups powdered sugar (or 2 lb. bag of powdered sugar)

Combine the butter, whipping cream & vanilla in a saucepan and cook on medium heat until butter is melted. Then add the cocoa & icing sugar & mix well on low heat. Once it is mixed well (meaning you can get rid of as many of the little chunks as you can), pour it into a blender and puree it for a good 3-4 minutes. If all the little chunks haven't disappeared, puree it for a couple more minutes. (Beware not to fill the blender too full as the heat of the sauce will increase the pressure in the blender and if it's too full the top may pop off and make a huge mess...so you may just want to puree it in two batches to avoid this. Chris also suggested not putting the lid on too tightly as that will let the pressure escape, but I'm too nervous the lid will pop off to try this method and just stick with doing 1/2 batch at a time.)

Serve over vanilla ice cream...homemade is definitely the best;)

Note: I like it made with the whipping cream better!

Enjoy!

Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream with Variations

This recipe is from Chris's aunt Mindy. The recipe is to make Caramel Crunch ice cream, but I thought I'd post it as vanilla ice cream since we use the vanilla ice cream base to make all sorts of variations, like caramel crunch, cookies n cream, etc. I think we've also made peanut butter cup with it before too! Oh and I just have to mention that even though it might sound kinda funny mixed berry oreo is SO good.

The difference in this recipe versus the recipe for the berry ice cream is this recipe uses eggs and so Chris says it's more of a custard base... whatever it is it's smooth and creamy and absolutely DELICIOUS!!!

Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream
4 eggs
2 1/2 cups sugar
5 cups whole milk
3 cups whipping cream
2 1/2 tbsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt

Beat eggs until light. Add sugar and continue to beat until thick. Add the milk, whipping cream, vanilla and salt and mix well. Pour into a 4 quart freezer and place in ice cream maker, surround with ice and rock salt and allow to mix. Check periodically and add more ice as necessary.

*Note: If you only have a 5 or 6 quart machine, then use 6 cups whole milk and 4 cups whipping cream.

**Note: If you are concerned about Salmonella you have 2 options. You can substitute the eggs with an egg substitute such as Egg Beaters (follow instructions on carton). You can also heat the egg/milk mixture to 160 degrees F slowly then cool it quickly in the fridge or freezer.

Mindy's Carmel Crunch
1 jar Mrs. Richardsons Caramel Topping
1bag crushed Skor chips

Follow instructions above, however add 1/2 jar of caramel topping before you turn the ice cream maker on. When freezer slows, add the crushed Skor chips and the rest of the caramel.

*Note: You might not want to use the entire jar or the entire package of the chips if you're using a 4 quart machine.

Mixed Berry
2 cups mixed berries, thawed and mashed

Follow instructions above, adding the mixed berries to the ice cream maker before you turn it on.

Cookies-N-Cream
1/2 - 3/4 bag Oreos, crushed in a ziploc bag (if you buy the monster box from Costco Chris suggests using 2 1/2 sleeves)

Follow instructions above. Once the ice cream maker has stopped turning add the crushed Oreos.

Berry Cookies-N-Cream
1/2 - 3/4 bag Oreos, crushed in a ziploc bag (if you buy the monster box from Costco Chris suggests using 2 1/2 sleeves)
2 cups mixed berries, thawed and mashed

Follow instructions above, adding the mixed berries before you turn the ice maker on. Once the ice cream has stopped add the crushed Oreo's.

*Note: as mentioned above, you can use the basic vanilla recipe and mix in anything you'd like!

Enjoy!

Grandma Bickmore's Homemade Berry Ice Cream

Homemade ice cream is a huge Bickmore (and now Parson) family tradition. I always hear stories of the homemade ice cream at Grandma's, especially on Memorial Day when everyone would bring their ice cream maker and make a different kind of ice cream. Chris loves making ice cream any excuse he can get (actually he doesn't even need an excuse!), so it was a no-brainer that he needed to make Grandma's berry ice cream for Memorial Day this year!

I think raspberries must have been Grandma's favourite berry because another favourite family recipe is a Raspberry Cream pie, which I think was from Grandma as well!

Grandma's Raspberry Ice Cream
2 bags frozen raspberries OR substitue any kind of berries you like
2 cups sugar
3 Quarts 1/2 & 1/2 (or 6 cups cream and 6 cups milk)

Mash berries thoroughly in a bowl. Add sugar and mix to dissolve.

Put in 4 quart ice cream maker and fill to the fill line with 1/2 & 1/2.

Cover with rock salt, ice and turn on!

*Note: Chris just eye balls the berries as we buy a big bag of them from Costco, but I googled it and found that a 12 oz bag of frozen raspberries is equal to approximately 3 cups frozen berries. Hope that helps!

Enjoy!