SPICY CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM


 

We first tried spicy chocolate in Bali, and the combination of spices and chocolate blew us away. This wasn’t just chocolate spiked with some chiles; instead, it was rich with cinnamon and black peppercorns with a gentle, warm heat that tickled the back of our throats.

If you can find them, fire-cured vanilla beans, popular in Indonesia, lend beautifully to this flavor. Typically fire-curing is seen as inferior to sun-curing but for some flavors it delivers a wonderful smoky note.

This ice cream will work with a range of different spicy peppers, but our favorite, hands down, is the chile d’arbol. Still, every palate and taste is different, so by all means, use the chiles you have on hand, and play around with different ones to see which chile or combination of chiles appeals the most to you. Maybe it’s a smoky chipotle or an assertive Thai chile that will become your favorite go-to.

 


MAKES ABOUT 1 QUART


6 whole black peppercorns

4 chiles d’arbol, seeded and crushed

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ smoked or regular vanilla bean, split lengthwise and seeds scraped out

1 cup heavy cream

2½ cups whole milk

¾ cup (150 grams) sugar

½ teaspoon (2 grams) kosher salt

6 large egg yolks

3 ounces (85 grams) unsweetened chocolate discs (99% cacao), preferably Michel Cluizel (see Sources)

1. With a mortar and pestle or in a spice grinder, finely grind the peppercorns, chiles d’arbol, cinnamon, and vanilla bean seeds and pod. Set aside.

2. Pour the cream and milk into a double boiler or a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water). Whisk in ½ cup (100 grams) of the sugar, the ground spice mix, and the salt and stir until the sugar and salt have dissolved. Warm the mixture until you see steam rising from the top. Remove from the heat, cover, and let the mixture steep for 15 minutes. Transfer to a blender and blend until fully pureed. Strain the mixture back into the double boiler (if using a Vitamix, there is no need to strain).

3. Meanwhile, prepare an ice bath in a large bowl and set another bowl over it. Set aside.

4. In a medium bowl, with a kitchen towel underneath it to prevent slipping, whisk together the egg yolks with the remaining ¼ cup (50 grams) sugar until uniform. While whisking, add a splash of the hot dairy mixture to the yolks. Continue to add the dairy mixture, whisking it in bit by bit, until you’ve added about half. Add the yolk mixture to the remaining dairy mixture in the double boiler. Set the heat under the double boiler to medium and cook the custard, stirring continuously with a wooden spoon and reducing the heat to medium-low as necessary, until steam begins to rise from the surface and the custard thickens enough to coat the back of the spoon. Hold the spoon horizontally and run your finger through the custard. If the trail left by your finger stays separated, the custard is ready to be cooled. Remove the custard from the heat and stir in the chocolate until it has melted completely and the custard is uniform.

5. Strain the custard into the bowl sitting over the prepared ice bath and stir for 3 to 5 minutes, or until the custard has cooled. Transfer the custard to a quart-size container, cover, and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or, preferably, overnight.

6. Pour the chilled custard into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Place the container in which you refrigerated the custard in the freezer so you can use it to store the finished ice cream. Churn the ice cream until the texture resembles “soft serve.” Transfer the ice cream to the chilled storage container and freeze until hardened to your desired consistency. Alternatively, you can serve it immediately—it will be the consistency of gelato. The ice cream will keep, frozen, for up to 7 days.

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