Chocolate Gelato with Baci Truffles
Chocolate Gelato with Baci Truffles is the ice cream of my dreams. So, I knew it was one of the very first recipes I would post on A Perfect Feast. As a kid I used to love going out for ice cream, to Carvel or Baskin Robins. But, these days, I much prefer making my own ice cream. That way I get to decide how much sugar, and what kind of chocolate or other flavoring, my ice cream will have.
The Equipment I Used
- An Ice Cream Maker- I used my trusty Donvier ice cream maker, which I’ve had for over 20 years. If you don’t have an ice cream maker, try looking up instructions for ice cream in a bag.
- An Electric Mixer- You will need this to beat together the egg yolks and sugar. Or, you could whisk it together by hand.
- A Double Boiler- You need this to melt your chocolate without burning it. If you don’t have one, just put the chocolate in a heat safe bowl, over a pot of simmering water.
- A Sieve- I used a fine mesh sieve to strain the custard, for a smooth texture. I think you could just skip this step, if you don’t own a sieve.
The Ingredients Needed for Chocolate Gelato with Baci Truffles
- The Milk- I used whole milk for this recipe, and I’m not sure that a lower fat milk would work here.
- The Cream- You need to use heavy cream.
- The Egg Yolks- You need to use large eggs. I saved the whites and made egg sandwiches with them for breakfast today.
- The Chocolate- I used Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate for gelato chocolate base. I already had some in my pantry, and it gave the gelato a great flavor. Then, I also mixed in one chopped up Baci Truffle bar, which is super cool because it has a layer of milk chocolate, a layer of hazelnut filling, and a layer of dark chocolate. You could also use Baci Truffles, which are nice in gelato because they have whole hazelnuts in them.
How I Made the Gelato
- I started to make the gelato the night before I wanted to serve it. This is not essential, but it does make the churning go faster when your mixture is already super cold. So, at 10 o’clock last night I made the custard, and then put it back in the cleaned mixing bowl, and into the fridge to chill up.
- Early (okay, at 9am), I poured the custard in the canister and started churning. Luckily, my husband was around to give me all his churning expertise, since up to recently, I’d never churned before. That always used to be something my kids loved to do with their dad, so I never had to churn it myself.
- Then, we could have eaten the gelato right after churning. At that point it had the consistency of soft serve, which is always fine with me. But, I knew we needed to let it firm up, in order for it to be firm enough to photograph. After about 5 hours, it was hard enough to hold its shape when scooped.
If you’ve never made ice cream before, I encourage you to try it. This Chocolate Gelato with Baci Truffles is so easy to make. The hardest part, for me, was guarding the truffles from my family, until I was ready to use them. Next time, I will definitely hide my chocolate supplies, because it is just exhausting answering all those questions about why I need so much chocolate. Anyway, I’ve decided National Ice Cream Day is quite possibly my very favorite holiday. It brings me so much joy to see everyone’s ice cream all over Instagram. So, I hope you’ll all either make some ice cream, or get a fancy cone at your favorite ice cream shop, because life is too short not to enjoy all the ice cream you can!
Chocolate Gelato with Baci Truffles
Equipment
- ice cream maker
- electric mixer
- double boiler
- fine sieve
Ingredients
- 1½ cups whole milk
- 3 egg yolks
- ¼ cup sugar
- 4 ounces dark chocolate, cut up
- 1½ cups heavy cream
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 10 Baci truffles or a 5.29 Baci bar
Instructions
- In a three quart saucepan, bring the milk to a simmer.
- In an electric mixer, using the whisk attachment, beat the egg yolks and sugar for about 4 minutes, or until the batter drips from the whisk in a slow ribbon.
- Add half of the warm milk to the mixing bowl. Then add everything in the mixing bowl back into the pot. Over low heat, stirring constantly, mix the custard until it is thick enough to coat the spoon. Take care not to let the mixture boil.
- Meanwhile, in a double boiler over hot not boiling water, melt the dark chocolate. Add it to the custard, and then strain it through a fine sieve.
- Let the mixture cool for at least 2 hours, or preferably overnight.
- Add the mixture to your ice cream maker, and follow the manufacturer's directions.
- Towards the end of the churning process, add the chopped up Baci bar or truffles.
