I’ve professed my love of sweet and salty before. They really are a perfect combination. When thinking about the salty things that could go well in a chocolate ice cream, we came up with a list of all kinds of things: peanuts, almond brittle, pretzels, even potato chips. So, instead of picking one, we decided to pick them all!
Enter ballpark chocolate! It is a chocolate ice cream made with both cocoa powder and melted bittersweet chocolate, filled with, well, peanuts, almond brittle, pretzels, and even chocolate covered potato chips! We decided that all of those seemed like the kinds of treats you might get at a ballgame, hence the name. It is a delightfully crunchy, salty, sweet, chocolatey, smooth delight!
Ballpark Chocolate
We hit it out of the park with this one!
Ingredients
- Chocolate Paste
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
2 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped
- The Rest of the Base
4 egg yolks
1/4 skim milk powder
1/3 cup sugar
1 3/4 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup whole milk
- Mix Ins
Chocolate covered pretzels*
Peanuts
Almond brittle (I used this recipe)
Chocolate covered potato chip pieces*
Directions
- Mix Ins
- Prepare your mix ins. (You can find the recipe we used for almond brittle in this previous ice cream post.) Allow them all to cool if you make them yourself. Once they are cool, chop them all into small pieces and move to the freezer until you are ready to add them to the ice cream.
- Chocolate Paste
- Combine the cocoa powder, water, and sugar and mix until combined. Bring the mixture to a boil.
- Once it is boiling, slowly add the bittersweet chocolate, stirring after each addition until smooth.
- Set aside while you prepare the rest of your base.
- Rest of the Base
- Whisk the egg yolks until they are light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Slowly whisk in the sugar until the color turns lighter and the consistency is smooth, about 2 minutes more. Add the powdered milk and whisk again until well blended.
- Add the egg/sugar mixture to a sauce pan along with the milk and cream. Heat on medium low heat until it reaches 162, stirring frequently and scraping the bottom with a spatula to avoid cooking the eggs. Add the chocolate paste and stir until uniform in color.
- Turn the heat on low once it reached temperature and stir constantly, letting the mixture reduce, for about 10 minutes.
- Add base to a plastic gallon bag, and put in a prepared ice bath until cooled (about 15-20 minutes).
- Make in your ice cream maker based on the maker’s instructions.
- During the last 5-10 minutes in the machine, when the ice cream is about the texture of soft serve, add in your prepared mix ins (make sure they are all about the size of a pea or smaller). Don’t add it all in! Add handfuls at a time until you get your desired chunkiness.
- Move to the freezer until hardened (at least 4 hours).
Notes
- *To coat anything in a chocolate shell, we simply melt 1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate with 1 tsp canola oil or coconut oil. Microwave the chocolate in 30 second increments, stirring in between until it is melted and smooth. Then, dip whatever you are coating with the chocolate, move to a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, and move to the fridge or freezer until hardened. Then, just chop everything into pea size (or smaller) pieces, if necessary.
