Coffee Ice Cream with Dark Chocolate Flecks-a deep coffee flavor with tiny bursts of dark chocolate! A coffee lover’s dream come true!
Almost 2 months ago, I had the privilege to head out to Santa Barbara, California and meet up with some blog friends. The location was perfect, the food was fabulous and the company…seriously some of the best people I know. Dorothy of Crazy for Crust, Julianne of Beyond Frosting, Lindsay of Love, Life and Sugar, Hayley the Domestic Rebel, Jen of Yummy Healthy Easy, Debra of Taste and Tell and Krista of Joyful Healthy Eats.
Being food bloggers, our hosts (Dorothy, Julianne and Lindsay) made sure we were treated to some of the best food available. While I loved it all, McConnell’s Dairy had the biggest impression on me. Probably because My grandparents had a dairy farm but really it’s because it was all about the ice cream!
I fell in love with all the flavors but especially the coffee ice cream. I even had it for breakfast one morning (it is coffee after all!) I knew I’d be coming home and making several of their flavor combinations.
Not having a full dairy at my disposal, and knowing I wanted this ice cream to be easy, I did take a few shortcuts, I know McConnell’s would never take.
Instant coffee. You could seep whole coffee beans to extract the best coffee flavor, but when there are some excellent instant coffees on the market (Starbucks) go for easy.
Don’t let the dark color scare you off, once you add in the heavy cream, it will lighten up quite a bit and still maintain that rich coffee flavor.
The same can be said of the chocolate you choose to use. I love dark chocolate and coffee together. I just might have had a Special Dark Candy Bar (or 3) in my freezer. Cheese graters aren’t just for cheese.
The McConnell Coffee Ice Cream is speckled with chocolate, not big chunks like chocolate chips. I won’t judge if you use mini chocolate chips. Add the chocolate shavings just before the ice cream is ready.
Normally, I’ll transfer my homemade ice cream to a container and freeze it to make it a little harder but this Coffee Ice Cream didn’t stand a chance. We had it as soft serve.
I was hoping the kids wouldn’t like it so it would be all mine. Not a chance. I had to save a small bowl for my son who wasn’t home when it was made, just so he could have a small taste.
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Ingredients
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 2-3 Tablespoons instant coffee
- 1 cup whole milk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 4 ounces dark chocolate
Instructions
- Combine sugar and instant coffee in a large bowl. Add milk and with a hand mixer, beat until sugar and coffee are dissolved. Add in vanilla and heavy cream and mix until blended. Chill in refrigerator for 2 hours or more.
- Add mixture to ice cream maker and freeze according to machine directions.
- While ice cream is freezing, shave dark chocolate using a cheese grater. Place shaved chocolate in freezer for 10 minutes.
- 5 minutes before ice cream is done, add chocolate shavings.
- Serve as soft ice cream or place in freezer safe container and place in freezer for 2-3 hours for a hard ice cream.
Just look at all those chocolate flecks!
This is the Ice Cream maker I have and I love it!
Want more Ice Cream?
Chocolate Butterfinger Ice Cream
Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Ice Cream from Love, Life and Sugar
Peach Maple Walnut Ice Cream from Beyond Frosting
Salted Caramel Peanut Butter Ice Cream from Crazy for Crust
Joan I am seriously DYING to try this! I know how much you loved this ice cream in Santa Barbara, so I can only imagine how good this is!
I just made ice cream for the first time and now I am hooked , want to try your recipe! Nettie
Their coffee ice cream was so good I’ve been dreaming about it. This looks absolutely perfect Joan! Like, I might have to make it NOW! 🙂
This retreat looked amazing!! And I can’t get over how amazing these pictures are Joan!! Gorgeous!
Coffee ice cream is my favorite! Can’t wait to try this!
So wishing I had some of this for breakfast right now! What a great way to get a coffee fix when the weather is warm 😉
Now that’s an ice cream flavor I could totally devour! It looked like you guys had an awesome time together…I’m so sad I couldn’t make it! I’m sure the ice cream would have been a highlight for me too 🙂
Coffee ice cream is my favorite! Followed the recipe but it never got hard! I have the Krups ice cream maker. Tasted good as an iced coffee!
I’m not familiar with the Krupps machine but I know in my old machine (one that used ice and rock salt) I would get the ice cream to a very soft serve and then have to freeze it completely in the freezer to make it more solid.
This looks great and I can’t wait to try it. One question: Can you use Folgers Crystals for this or does it have to be ground coffee? Thanks! Gwen
You can use any instant coffee, so the Folgers Crystals should be fine.
hi it says hues instant coffee, are we making the actual coffee or just do the tablespoons as instant coffee powder
Use the instant coffee dry, it will dissolve in the cream.