(Makes about one and one half quarts) (Ray, Sr.’s own recipe!)
This recipe may appear to be complicated but it is not. It is definitely worth the time spent in producing a top quality home made ice cream. Do understand that if you are serious about making excellent ice cream you will buy a gelato maker with a built-in freezer unit. The old-fashioned rock salt and ice bucket types just don’t cut it in making the more demanding varieties of ice cream. They do not provide a uniform degree of freezing from the center of the stirrer out to the can, i.e., the ice cream freezes to the limit of reasonable stiffness on the outside while still too soft in the center. A uniform density/freezing level is essential to making this ice cream so that the additions at the end don’t sink to the bottom of the plastic container before the ice cream is frozen sufficiently everywhere to keep that from happening.
You can use an old-fashioned rock salt and ice bucket type of ice cream maker by making an allowance for it's limitations. Mix well and then freeze the ice cream in the deep freeze without the additions at the end but only until it is fairly stiff but still workable. Then the additions can be folded in and the final ice cream hard frozen for four or more hours.
Ingredients:
2½ cups ofheavy cream
Half and half (up to one cup or more as needed)
½ cup of sugar
2 tsp. of vanilla
¼ tsp. of salt
1 jumbo egg or two large eggs
½ cup of blanched, chopped, roasted almonds (or more to suit your preference)
1 cup or more of marshmallow crème (Use Ray’s marshmallow crème recipe)
8, ¾"x1½"x ½" blocks of Scharfenberger’s® 82% cacao dark chocolate, the type used in candy making. You might substitute using baking chocolate but a top quality dark candy making chocolate is best. You might also use premium dark chocolate high cacao (85%) bars found in the candy section of better supermarkets (Lindt®). In any event the weight of the Scharfenberger’s® chocolate I use is 2 ounces total, so an equivalent weight from a high cacao Lindt® bar should work just fine.
¼ cup of Hershey’s® chocolate syrup (contains sugar)
1/3 cup of Ghirardelli® cocoa mix (contains sugar, so don’t substitute with an equivalent amount of Hershey’s® dry cocoa). If you have to substitute, use a combination of 1/8th cup Hershey’s® dry cocoa and ¼ cup sugar.
6, bite size pieces of Milky Way® or Snickers® candy or one standard size bar
Directions:
Blanch the almonds by simmering them in boiling water for one minute (I do this in a Pyrex® cup in the microwave oven) and then rinse in them in cold water, then remove the skins by pinching the skin from the nutmeat. Discard the skins. Dry the blanched almonds with a paper towel and chop them each into two to four pieces. Place almond pieces on a cookie tray and lightly roast them in a 350ºF oven for about 10 minutes, stirring pieces around every three minutes to assure even roasting. They will be light tan in color when done. Cool the almond pieces and place them in a freezer on a saucer.
Cut the Milky Way® or Snickers® candy pieces into four pieces each or cut the bar into 24 pieces and freeze them on a saucer with all pieces separated from each other.
Cut the dark chocolate blocks into small pieces. Melt the chocolate pieces, chocolate syrup and cocoa mix in a small saucepan. Mix and melt, then slowly add one cup of the heavy cream, ¼ tsp. salt and 2 tsp. of vanilla while continuing to mix. When thoroughly blended, chill the mixture in the freezer, in the pan, for about 20 minutes.
Whisk the egg(s) until fluffy in an electric mixer bowl. Gradually add the ½ cup of sugar while mixing and continue to mix until well mixed. Add 1 ½ cups heavy cream and mix well. Chill the mixture in a refrigerator for 15 minutes.
Pour the egg, sugar and cream base into a one quart measuring cup. Add the chilled chocolate and cream mixture stirring gently to mix well. Adjust the volume to one quart using Half and Half. Note: I use some of the half and half to get all the chocolate mix out of the saucepan. Transfer the entire contents into the gelato maker and process to make the ice cream.
When the ice cream is fairly stiff add the almond pieces and continue mixing for two minutes. Stop mixing, remove the ice cream into a 2 quart plastic container and put it into ice cubes in a larger bowl (or better yet, put the ice cream into a deep freeze for one hour as that will ensure ingredients added later will not go to the bottom of the container). Add the frozen Milky Way® or Snickers® pieces and fold them into the ice cream with a wooden spoon. This typically means mix gently for about 30 seconds.
Add the marshmallow crème in units of one rounded tsp., four teaspoons per addition, onto the top of the ice cream and then fold them into the ice cream keeping them separated from each other until covered with ice cream. Hint: I use two teaspoons with each other to make the marshmallow crème additions easy. I use one of the teaspoons to get the marshmallow crème from the jar and the other to help remove the marshmallow crème from the first spoon, causing the marshmallow crème to drop onto the surface of the ice cream. Mix the marshmallow crème into the ice cream gently after each addition of four spoons of marshmallow crème. Repeat that process until the marshmallow crème is consumed.
Freeze the finished ice cream for three or more hours in a 0ºF deep freeze until it is solid. It is then ready to serve at your leisure.