Cocoa Regina (or: Honey-Sweetened Chocolate Ice Cream)

I stayed up a bit late to ensure there was an illustration for today's entry, and not just a whole lotta' jabbering...

I have a problem with sugar, Gentle Readers.  And that problem is that although I like sugar, sugar does not like me.  Specifically it does not like my joints, or my un-inflamed state.  Yep, too much of the deadly white stuff and my joints get all swollen and painful- plus I just generally feel like crap.

Honey, on the other hand, does not seem to have this effect on me.  Don't ask me why- honey is sugar, too, after all- but I'm sure there is some science-y explanation I just haven't stumbled across yet.  Or perhaps it's psychosomatic- who knows!  Anyway the point is that ever since I discovered this strange reality (sugar = pain, but honey does not) I've been turning to honey to sweeten things.  Obviously it's not a one-for-one substitute (honey is sweeter, for one thing, and it's a liquid rather than a solid- although you're supposed to treat sugar as a liquid when you bake, sooo... never mind, ignore my ramble-prone brain) but it does a damn fine job.  Especially since I actually prefer the flavor of a good dark honey to that of plain white sugar.

But.

Oh but, Gentle Readers.  When we got our ice cream maker last month, I dutifully made my beloved Riesling ice cream- and for that I used sugar.  I thought, briefly, of using honey, but there was much I did not understand- for example, would it crystallize differently?  Probably, but would it matter?  According to the interwebs, using honey in ice cream can make it grainy- well that's no good.  So I stuck to the traditional recipe, and vowed I'd do some experimentation later on down the road.

Well last week I came across an article on NPR about the bacon sundae.  What an excellent idea, I thought to myself, bacon and ice cream!- and then recoiled in horror at the photo.  Basically they just threw a couple of limp "bacon" slices into a cup of soft-serve.  Gross.

I can do better than that, I thought indignantly.  But if I was going to make bacon ice cream, I was going to use chocolate.  And if I was going to start experimenting with ice cream, then the time had come for me to muscle down and figure out how to do it with honey.

On a whim I posted to Facebook: "Who has the best recipe for chocolate ice cream? Bonus points if honey is used instead of white sugar..." because sometimes I am lazy and want other people to have already done the work for me.  The only person who responded was my friend Jason, who didn't have a recipe, per se, but offered to tweet at Alton Brown for his opinion.  The response?

"It's not a simple trade out because the honey is quite different from sucrose. And there's the added moisture to calculate."

Which made me say, "Not a SIMPLE trade-out, but DO-ABLE. This shall happen, oh yes..."

And thus began another, more in-depth round of Interwebs Research.  Finally, armed with what I'd gleaned from dozens of sources, as well as Alton's own chocolate ice cream recipe as a jumping-off point, I got started.

Here is what I used, and what I did with what I used:

1 c. cocoa powder
2 pints half and half
1/2 pint heavy whipping cream
8 egg yolks (fresh from the farmer's market, no less!)
1/2 c. local raw honey (I used Garden of Beeden's "Mystery Blend") (Wish I could link to them but darned if I can find their website)
2 tsp vanilla extract

Oh farmer's market, full of delicious things to use to make other delicious things.*

First things first, I put a cup of half and half and the cocoa powder in a sauce pan and whisked the heck out of it until they were well blended.  Then I added the rest of the dairy and turned up the heat to medium, stirring occasionally until it hit a low simmer, at which point I took it off the heat.


While the dairy was heating, I whisked the egg yolks in a medium bowl until the yolks got paler, and then whisked in the honey.  Once the milk mixture was ready, I enlisted Nathan's help to ladle in 1/3 cup at a time while I kept whisking (I know the limits of my own dexterity).  Once he'd ladled in about half of the mixture I had him pour in the rest, then I put it all back in the saucepan and back on the heat.


I kept it on medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until it hit 175 degrees and passed the spoon test, then poured it back into the medium bowl and let it sit at room temp for thirty minutes.  Then I stirred in the vanilla extract and transferred it to the fridge to chill for three hours, until the bottom of the bowl was cold to the touch.  After that it was just ye old "follow ice-cream-maker manufacturer's instructions".


It came out super thick- and amazingly smooth and creamy, which I'd been nervous about.  Honestly, it came out incredible.

Super, super thick.

In my opinion the texture fresh from the ice cream maker was just perfect- after being frozen overnight it became annoyingly hard (not icy: just hard)- but I've read that's par for the course with home-made ice cream (that hasn't been made with alcohol).  Maybe next time I'll just serve it fresh from the 'maker and ensure there isn't any left over for freezing!


Nathan thinks we ought to try using less cocoa next time; he felt it had a weird follow-through that dried his mouth a little.  I didn't get that, but I'm- obviously- always willing to experiment...




*But where's the bacon, you ask?  Well, I decided I'd better make sure I could successfully make the ice cream using honey before I went tossing perfectly good bacon into it.  So next time, Gentle Readers.  Next time.