Mexican Hot Chocolate Ice Cream

It all started with a visit to Old Mission Santa Barbara in late January. CA has 21 beautiful missions dotting the coastline from just north of San Francisco down to San Diego and even if you don’t LIKE old buildings, you’ll probably find something to enjoy on the the visit. The missions vary in size, but the hill-top ones I’ve visited in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara have mini-museums with exhibits on building materials and strategies and the inhabitant’s day to day lives.

santa barbara mission from www.alyssaandcarla.com

You might think that this has very little to do with a recipe, but I LOVE food. And I’m ALSO equal opportunity. So, as I was reading about how Lincoln signed the order which returned the Missions to the Catholic Church after some corrupt Mexican governor leased the land out to private parties, all I could think about was Mexico. And how it was sunny but chilly outside and Mexicans make REALLY good hot chocolate and MAN. I needed to make some Mexican Hot Chocolate.

So, I sweetly bullied Alyssa into letting me pick this week’s recipe theme. Which wasn’t very nice of me considering I know that it costs like $14 for a single cherry in Tokyo. And cherries are MUCH more universal than SPECIFIC, REGIONAL CHOCOLATE PRODUCTS. If you haven’t read Alyssa’s account of a journey to a scary store and lots of wishing to acquire a reasonable substitute, you should probably do that RIGHT NOW. So that you can accurately COMPARE AND CONTRAST.

The hardest part of my journey to pick up Mexican hot chocolate was parking. And that’s only because the urban planner who decided on the parking lot layout for my local Safeway/Trader Joe’s market area probably just has a very low IQ or a very skewed idea about how cars work. It took me about 13 minutes to get a spot, but then I went inside and LO! Two full aisles of international products! I was starting to think that I had equal access to JAPANESE products at this point (probably not- no cookies and cream Kit Kats in sight)- but nothing made me feel like a spoiled CA foodie than spotting this:

british food products from www.alyssaandcarla.com

Yes, folks. That IS an entire section of BRITISH FOOD PRODUCTS. Cadbury! Aero Bars! PG Tips! I love and respect all foods, but I think we can all agree that I live in a VERY special place when I can get lemon curd FROM BRITAIN for my tea within 2 miles of my house.

I’ll cut to the chase since I’ve ruined any element of suspense: I found Mexican hot chocolate within minutes. It was the Abuelita brand made by Nestle, which I actually haven’t used before. (I suspect this is only because I’ve always appreciated the Mayan-ish packaging on the Ibarra brand, but I’ve been told they’re extremely similar. Amazon carries Taza Chocolate which offers organic versions in different flavors like ginger and chili and coffee. I didn’t want to stray from the traditional cinnamon infused chocolate for now, but will probably test a few in the coming weeks.)

Several months ago I bought the ice cream attachment for my Kitchen Aid mixer and (shamefully) had yet to use it. What WONDERFUL timing! Mexican Hot Chocolate ice cream, it is! I scoured the internet’s recipe offerings and sent a few to Alyssa for a little advice (it’s soon going to become very obvious that *I* can cook, but Alyssa *IS* a cook). She suggested that I go for the creamiest ice cream possible by choosing a recipe which required me to make a custard, so I went for this recipe.

Mexican Hot Chocolate Ice Cream

1 cup heavy whipping cream (The original recipe notes that you can use half and half but I was making ice CREAM, not ice HALF AND HALF. Maybe next time.)

another 1 cup heavy whipping cream (Can use half and half again, as above.)

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1 disk and 2 triangles of mexican hot chocolate (like Abuelita or Ibarra)

1 cup whole milk

1/2 cup sugar

Pinch salt

Pinch cayenne (I’m leaving this item in because it sounds delicious, even though I didn’t use it. This was only because I didn’t OWN it in my spice cupboard. Note: Alyssa probably has cayenne in several varieties from several different regions in HER spice stash.)

Pinch espresso powder or instant coffee (Funny story: I drink tea at home because it’s easier to make. So I didn’t HAVE any sort of powder or coffee. I ended up buying those Starbucks Via instant coffee packages and using a pinch from one of those.)

6 egg yolks, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Heat one cup of cream in a small saucepan (1 qt). Whisk in cocoa powder. Bring to a simmer. Whisk until cocoa powder is well incorporated. Remove pot from heat. Stir in chocolate until completely incorporated. (Having experienced trying to melt Mexican hot chocolate before (I threw a chunk into milk and waited for AGES for it to melt properly), I grated the chocolate on a standard cheese grater. It worked perfectly and melted so quickly and smoothly.)

Put mixture into a metal bowl and add the remaining cup of cream. Set that bowl over a larger bowl half-filled with ice water to help cool it down. Place a mesh sieve over the bowl with the chocolate mixture.

Put one cup of milk, the sugar, cinnamon, salt, cayenne, espresso powder (or instant coffee) into a saucepan and heat until steamy (not boiling), stirring to incorporate the spices and dissolve the sugar. Place egg yolks in a medium sized bowl. Slowly pour the heated milk and mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly so that the egg yolks are tempered by the heated milk, but not cooked by it. Use a rubber spatula to scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

Stir the milk egg mixture constantly over medium heat with a wooden spoon, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spoon so that you can run your finger across the coating and have the coating not run. This can take anywhere from 3 to 10 minutes, depending on how hot your burner is.

(I have tempered eggs before, but not made a custard. I’m going to be real here and tell you that I had to make this part of the recipe twice. I’m going to blame the instructions listed because after Googling for a better description, I discovered two important things: you should REDUCE the heat to low/medium and the custard is thinner than I imagined from this description. I let the first round get too hot, so it quickly passed the “custard” stage and started to set. If you’ve never made a custard, check out the link above for extra help.)

As soon as the mixture coats the spoon, remove it from the heat and immediately pour it over the mesh sieve into the bowl of the chocolate cream mixture. Stir into the cream mixture.

Add a teaspoon of vanilla. Let the mixture cool a bit in the ice bath and then chill in the refrigerator until completely chilled, a couple hours or overnight.

Churn the mixture in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Store ice cream in an airtight container in your freezer for several hours before eating. The ice cream will be quite soft coming out of the ice cream maker, but will continue harden in your freezer. If you store it for more than a day, you may need to let it sit for a few minutes to soften before attempting to scoop it.

Makes 1 quart.

mexican hot chocolate ice cream from www.alyssaandcarla.com

The Verdict:

My mom claims not to care much about chocolate. Not that she doesn’t LIKE it, more that she will head for a fruity sweet before a chocolate-y one. That seems like bad criteria for taste-testing this recipe, but taking the ice cream over to my Mom’s meant I could ALSO get the impressions of my sister and two nieces. I like a crowd.

Mom: I casually offered her a bite without too much fanfare (this is a good strategy for my mom). She was drinking tea, but I told her she just needed to have a BITE. A few minutes later she threw out her tea and got a bowl.

Sister: HATES melted ice cream, so I offered it to her right out of the freezer while it was hardest. She thought that it was delicious and even was into the melty version. Unlike store bought ice cream, this ice cream didn’t separate as it melted. So it melted into a creamy, cool pudding-type consistency and was still yummy.

Niece #1: also claims to not be a fan of chocolate. Ate two bowls. Declared it to be “SO delicious.”

Niece #2: likes mostly everything, so I’m not surprised she dug this. Finished the original sample bowl I scooped for my sister and another two bowls.

mexican chocolate ice cream from www.alyssaandcarla.com

After the ice cream meal, my mom brought out one of her own Tupperware pieces for the leftovers. WHICH SHE JUST ASSUMED I WAS LEAVING FOR HER. (I did.)

Guys, I can’t stress this enough: you NEED to make this. It’s chocolate/cinnamon deliciousness, isn’t at all difficult to make and would pair so nicely with wafer cookies or some fruit. (I’m a bit surprised that it even MADE it to ice cream. I was eating the pre-ice cream machine mixture with a SPOON.)

You may also like: