Kona Coffee Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

I’m excited to say that we’ve gotten on the ice cream truck! After reading many, many ice cream posts over the last year on Annie’s Eats…and drooling at every post…I finally broke down and bought the ice cream maker for the KitchenAid.  And after looking around for a great coffee ice cream recipe (which for whatever reason was Kyle first choice to christen the new gadget – he’s never eaten coffee ice cream in the 6 1/2 years that we’ve been together!) without much luck, I decided to run out and use my 40% off coupon at Borders to buy The Perfect Scoop.  After all the rave reviews, I simply couldn’t make our first batch of ice cream and not use a recipe from this book.

In short…YUM!!!  This is a custard-based recipe and while a little labor intensive, it is totally worth every bit of effort.  The coffee flavor is absolutely perfect and while I was a little nervous about putting in ground beans, this addition was necessary to enhance the coffee-umph.  And don’t get me started on the creaminess! Just.so.good.  The recipe doesn’t call for chocolate chips but we added about 1 cup and in all honesty, we probably wouldn’t again as the recipe is able to stand on it’s own without any add-ins.

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One year ago: Traditional Madeleines and Pecan Honey Sticky Buns

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Coffee Ice Cream

source: David Lebovitz, The Perfect Scoop, page 34

• 1 1/2 cups whole milk
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 cups whole coffee beans (we used 100% Kona beans)
• pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 5 large egg yolks
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp finely ground coffee

1. Warm the milk, sugar, whole coffee beans, salt, and 1/2 cup of the cream in a medium saucepan.  Once the mixture is warm, cover, remove from the heat, and let steep at room temperature for 1 hour.
2. Rewarm the coffee-infused milk mixture. Pour the remaining 1 cup cream into a large bowl and set a mesh strainer on top.  In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks.  Slowly pour the warm coffee mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.
3. Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula.  Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream.  Press on the coffee beans in the strainer to extract as much of the coffee flavor as possible, then discard the beans.  Mix in the vanilla and the finely ground coffee and stir until cool over an ice bath.
4. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.