Tearoom Treats: Ice Cream

What’s the best thing you can make when you’re stuck at home all day? Why, ice cream of course!

For this Tearoom Treats, we’re sharing a recipe that you can customise so you can make your own unique family flavour - and you don’t even need a fancy ice cream maker! Top tip - start making this at breakfast time! It may take a long time, but it is worth it!

You will need:

• 500ml milk (whole or semi skimmed)
• 500ml double cream
• 200g 60% or 70% dark chocolate (we used a 60% dark chocolate from a well known discount supermarket!)
• 40g cocoa powder 8 egg yolks (you can use the egg whites to make a breakfast omelette, or you can freeze them for use later)
• 100g caster sugar If you don’t have much space in your freezer, you can make a half batch.

Put the milk, cream, cocoa powder and chocolate into a big pot and gently bring to a simmer. Take it off the heat and let all the chocolate melt. Give it a good stir to make sure there are no lumps.

Whisk the egg yolks and sugar until very pale and they have increased in volume. Slowly add the chocolate mixture to the eggs, whisking as you go. Put the mixture back in the pot, transfer to the hob and put on a medium/low heat for 10mins.

Stir continuously so the mixture doesn’t scald. It will thicken slightly. Pour into a Tupperware container. If your mixture has a few lumps, you can pour it through a sieve first. Leave it to cool completely - at least 2 hours - before putting it into the freezer.

After 45 minutes, take the ice cream out, scrape the frozen bits off the side and the bottom and beat them in with the rest of the mixture. You can use a spoon but if you have an electric mixer with dough hooks, those work really well and leave you with a smoother ice cream at the end. You will need to repeat this step every half hour or so for about 6 hours.

Towards the end of the 6 hours the mixture will, very quickly, start to resemble ice cream. Now you can customise it! If you have children, you can split the mixture into takeaway sized tubs so they can each create their own flavour - we mixed in cookies and peanut butter!

Give your ice cream one last freeze, then you can eat it! Don’t forget to share your flavour creations with us.