Chocolate Almond Ice Cream

Here is my follow up to the September 2nd post with my Vanilla Bean Ice Cream recipe.

The back-story here is that we (briefly) had a Vietnamese restaurant in a nearby shopping center that served Gelato. One day when I ordered it, I realized how expensive it was and was inspired to go online and find a recipe and see what made it so different from ice cream. I found this video from Giada De Laurentis and ended up modifying it slightly to basically combine her recipe and my vanilla bean.

In the video she talked about the cream to milk ratio having something to do with the difference, along with how much air is whipped into the two. 

When I went to Fred Meyer to look for Nutella, there was not a single jar on the shelf; they were in the early stages of a major renovation of the store, and were out of stock. But what I did find, was Hershey's Chocolate Almond spread, and a love affair was born ♥

So basically, to adapt my existing recipe, I use a 1/2 teaspoon of Vanilla Extract instead of the Vanilla bean - and 1/2 cup of the Hershey's Chocolate Almond spread. I also now put all of the 1/2 & 1/2 in the pan and cook it with the sugar and egg instead of setting half of it aside. I think that alteration is making my ice cream come out better. I also will add approximately 1/4 cup of chocolate shavings, either unsweetened or bittersweet, and this instantly became my favorite recipe. It is so smooth and the chocolate is lighter than normal chocolate ice cream and the nutty flavor of the almond is a great compliment to the chocolate. 

Chocolate Almond Ice Cream