Milk chocolate ice cream
Chocolate two ways: cocoa powder on the way down and dark couverture a little earlier. Despite the name "milk chocolate", the chocolate in it is dark.
It does not use milk chocolate couverture: it uses 70 % couverture. The name comes from the base, almost entirely whole milk, which softens the cocoa down to that milk-chocolate point.
Ingredients
For 1 kgTick each ingredient as you get it ready.
Need to adjust the formula?
Step by step
9 steps · follow the order for the best result
Chef's notes
- ·Cocoa powder at 40 °C · 70 % couverture at 70 °C, emulsifying well.
- ·Do not skip the cold ageing: it hydrates proteins and stabiliser and clearly improves the texture.
- ·The serving temperature depends on your recipe: if you formulate to a softer PAC than your freezer (say -11 °C with the chest at -18 °C), temper it for 5–10 min before serving; if the PAC matches your freezer, it can be eaten straight out.
- ·Why formulate at -11 and not at -18 °C: even though your freezer sits at -18 °C, formulating at -11 makes the ice cream tastes better — at -18 it is so cold that the taste buds barely pick up the flavour and the fat is slow to melt in the mouth. And keeps better: ice cream formulated at -11 and kept at -18 has less free water, suffers less from Ostwald ripening (ice crystals joining and growing) and keeps its creaminess longer.
- ·Keep your own notes: write down the POD and PAC that work best with your machine.
The texture
spot on
Creamy and slow-melting despite little cream: the fat comes from the milk chocolate itself, which sets when cold and holds the body. The cocoa is there but rounded by dairy, with no bitter edge.
All about this milk chocolate ice cream
The base is almost pure milk, with very little cream, because the couverture already brings fat. The ice cream lands on its fat target and on its solids.
The chocolate goes in in two forms and at two moments. The cocoa powder, at 40 °C, with the rest of the solids: it brings colour and bitterness without fat. The couverture, at 70 °C, on the way down: it brings cocoa butter, which is what gives the long melt.
The sugars are split between dextrose, sucrose and fructose up to the target sweetness, and the serving temperature sits mid-band.
The ingredients and what each does
Every ingredient has a technical job: cream brings fat and creaminess, milk powder raises the non-fat solids, the sugars set the sweetness and the freezing point, and the stabiliser controls crystal growth during storage.
Technique and controlling the numbers
Adjusting the POD (sweetening power) and the PAC (antifreezing power, given as a target temperature) lets you match sweetness and hardness to your taste and your machine. With the selectors in the side bar the formula recalculates itself and you will see how the amount of each ingredient changes.
Storage and common mistakes
Store at -18 °C in an airtight container and avoid freeze-thaw cycles. The commonest faults are not ageing it enough, too much sugar so it never freezes properly, and over-churning, which whips in too much air and wrecks the texture.
Recommended for this recipe
Equipment and ingredients that make the difference.
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