Dreyer's Slow Churned Hot Cocoa Ice Cream

Oh my! Dreyer's has announced a slow churned limited edition Hot Cocoa Ice Cream for the holiday season! How did I miss this announcement? Has anyone tried it yet?

Crepes by the Beach

My sister knows I love crepes second to hot chocolate! Nonetheless, while visiting the family in California she arranged a visit to two local Manhattan Beach / El Segundo crepe cafes. There was one cafe she just knew I would love. However, I wasn’t impressed with it. Therefore, I will not waste any time talking about it. However, my favorite café out of the two is Melt. Located in a relatively new shopping center called Plaza El Segundo, Melt is nestled towards the back of this vast open air shopping center.

When we arrived at the location early Saturday morning, no one was there. I was thinking….”oh, not good”. Since we were all hungry anyways, we decided to try it out. As usual, I selected the simple Strawberry & Cream Crepe. My sister chose a plain crepe while my mom opted for the Strawberry Royale which had strawberries, bananas, Nutella and cream. The staff was friendly and since we were the only customers at that time, the food arrived quickly.


I was disappointed that the menu did not contain hot chocolate, but my disappointment washed away when I engulfed a piece of my crepe. Yummy! The crepe itself was nice and thin. Every one was extremely pleased with their selection. When a crepe is purchased, Melt offers a discount on a gelato of your choice. Since Dad loves ice cream and gelato, my sister selected a “to go” cup of gelato for him. As mom and sister made a big ordeal as to what flavor to select for him, I decided to tune out of the madness.

On my next visit to California, a Melt visit is required! I hope the foot traffic picks up and it is still there when I return.

Ice Cream Wars

During these hot Texas summers, we’ve been enjoying a lot of ice cream lately. A few weeks ago my husband purchased a pint of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream for me and a pint of something type of ice cream for himself. Although I picked out the cookie dough, it was very refreshing. After eating a few bites, I returned my ¾ full pint to the freezer while my husband opted to eat his entire pint in one sitting.

On Friday, I decided take a little bit of ice cream before I headed off to work. Can you imagine! That joker ate my pint of ice cream and left a measly little teaspoon for me. I was livid! Good thing he left to the office first.

With that in mind, I devised a plan to make a luscious ice cream with my favorite featured product…. hot chocolate. As for sharing this dessert, I think not. I know this is very childish; however, he started it… :}

The basis of my ice cream was Vosges Haute Chocolat’s la parisienne couture cocoa with dark chocolate and Madagascar vanilla bean pieces. According to the Vosges’ website, Rachel Ray ranked la parisienne couture cocoa #1 out of 75 contenders. My recipe started out with:

1 pint Heavy Cream

1 cup Half & Half

1 tbl Sugar

¾ cup la parisienne cocoa

My goal was to create an extremely decadent ice cream, hence the heavy cream and half & half. I used my new double boiler to blend the hot chocolate with half & half over a medium heat. Once the mixture was heated through, I added the sugar and heavy cream. Since the hot chocolate was already sweetened, I did not wish to add a lot of sugar to the mix. I allowed the mixture to cool, or so I thought.

Since my double boiler didn’t have a lip/spout, I used a funnel to poor out my hot chocolate mixture in to my ice cream maker. After running it for the appropriate amount of time, I noticed it was not solidifying. Yikes. In my hast, I didn’t allow the mixture to cool enough. Check out my runny dessert in the picture to the right.

To further my disappointment, I allowed the husband to take a taste. I expected rave reviews, but received “you’ve made better hot chocolate than this before.” Geez. I needed to tweak the recipe a little more.

Anxious as always, I decided to put the entire freezer unit and mixing arm into the freezer to decrease the mixture’s temperature. That wasn’t too smart! I forgot to remove the freezer bowl until three hours later which left me with another mess. Now I have frozen solid hot chocolate ice cream. After keeping the bowl out for a little while so the “ice cream” can melt a little. I revved up the machine only to have mush on my hands and a warm “freezer” bowl. I needed a time out after this.

Day 2. The ingredients went back into the machine along with another +¼ cup of la parisienne couture cocoa and 1 small scoop of sugar. Unfortunately, I was eye balling both of these steps so I do not have an exact measurement. Too bad because when this ice cream maker was finished churning, an amazingly thick chocolate ice cream appeared. Look how it coated the bottom of the freezer bowl.

The husband came down to help remove the dreamy hot chocolate ice cream from the bowl. Along the way, we both snuck a taste. We both were amazed. This little recipe was DIVINE!

I reminded my husband of his dirty deeds earlier in the week, but I shared a round of hot chocolate ice cream. He smirked and gulped down his bowl of ice cream. Hmmm! That would be his last. A few mornings later, I had ice cream for breakfast and I shared the rest with my co-worker. She too thought the ice cream was divine and was impressed it held up with my commute to work. She also stated her husband, who is a cookie connoisseur, would absolutely love this ice cream.

After dinner that night, the husband was looking for the ice cream. He was very unhappy that I shared and devoured the ice cream without him. But I had to remind him of KARMA!