Strawberry Chocolate with Almonds Gelato Recipe
On a recent trip to State College, PA, my wife stopped at Tait Farms to pick up some local products including a Strawberry Dark Chocolate Sauce that my daughter thought would be a great ingredient to try in a new gelato or ice cream. I also had some Dark Chocolate Almonds with Sea Salt from Trader Joe's that are incredible on their own so how bad could the be in a home-made gelato?
Gelato Maker
There are different types of ice cream / gelato makers on the market. My first ice cream maker required you to first freeze the container before making the final product but my new Cuisinart Commercial Quality Ice Cream & Gelato Maker has the freezing mechanism built in.
This makes it much easier to make ice cream or gelato at anytime without using up a lot of space in the freezer.
Strawberry Chocolate with Almonds Gelato Recipe
Ingredients
- 1¾ cups heavy cream
- 2¼ cups whole milk divided
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- pinch salt
- 1 cup strawberry chocolate sauce or some commercial equivalent
- ¾ cup dark chocolate almonds finely chopped, ours were from Trader Joes
Instructions
- Combine cream and 1½ cups of the whole milk in a medium saucepan over medium heat and bring to a simmer.
- While the cream/milk mixture is heating, combine the remaining ¾ cup whole milk, cornstarch, sugar and salt into a mixing bowl and whisk to combine.
- As soon as the cream/milk mixture comes to a simmer, add the milk/sugar mixture and stir to combine.
- Whisk in the strawberry chocolate sauce and keep stirring until this mixture comes to a boil.
- Reduce heat and simmer until the mixture thickens until you can coat the back of the spoon with it. This can take 10 to 15 minutes depending on your stove top.
- Remove the pan from the heat and cool to room temperature. The recipe says to strain this mixture but we did not and it did not seem to make much difference.
- Cover the bowl and stick into the refrigerator for a minimum of 2 hours or overnight. I read somewhere that the longer you let this mixture sit, the more the flavors get incorporated. We could only wait about 4 hours.
- According to the instruction manual, “chilling the mixture is not required….but this step will prevent any ice or fat crystals from forming during the freezing process for resting it in a chilled environment helps bind the ingredients together.”
- Before adding the chilled mixture to the gelato maker, re-whisk to make sure all the ingredients are well combined. Follow the instructions provided by your manufacturer’s booklet for the right amount of time.
- My machine said to process for about 30 minutes and add the chopped nuts after 25 minutes. You are going to find the gelato will be soft and creamy but if you want it firmer, like I do, stick it back into the freezer for about 2 hours.
- You “should” remove it from the freezer 15 minutes before serving if you can possibly wait that long. I could not.
Notes
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