Mocha Ice Cream (Mokka Eis)

Overhead view of mocha ice cream in a parchment lined loaf pan with an ice cream scooper.

A match made in heaven, this Mocha Ice Cream is packed with both dark chocolate and coffee and I don't think I could love an ice cream more. The key to making this rich and creamy chocolate ice cream into a mocha ice cream is the espresso powder and chocolate covered espresso beans from Hoosier Hill Farms.

Prep Time20

Cook Time20

Cooling8

Total Time8 40

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American, German

Keyword: Chocolate, coffee, ice cream

Servings:

Calories: 369kcal

Equipment

Ice Cream Maker
Pot

Ingredients

Custard

100 grams dark chocolate finely chopped
6 egg yolks
300 grams granulated sugar divided
20 grams espresso powder about 5 tablespoons
1 teaspoon salt
35 grams cocoa powder
500 milliliters whole milk
400 milliliters heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Add Ins

90 grams chocolate covered espresso beans

Instructions

Prep the Chocolate

Chop the dark chocolate into 1/4" sized chunks and transfer them into a large heat safe bowl. Place a fine mesh sieve over the top and set aside.

Custard

Place all 6 egg yolks in a medium mixing bowl and set aside.
Add the cocoa powder, espresso powder, salt, and half of the sugar into a medium pot. Whisk to combine.
Pour in the milk and heavy cream and whisk again.
Place the pot over medium heat, stirring frequently to prevent burning until it is steaming. While it heats up, add the remaining sugar into the bowl with the egg yolks and whisk to combine.
Set the bowl with the egg yolks and sugar on a damp cloth. This will keep it from spinning when you whisk it.
Once the milk mixture is steaming and the dry ingredients have fully mixed in, remove it from the heat and set it next to the bowl with the egg yolks.
While whisking the egg yolks constantly, use a ladle to slowly drizzle the hot milk mixture into the egg yolks. Don't stop whisking, this is called tempering the eggs and it helps prevent them from curdling.
Add about 1 cup of the milk mixture into the egg yolks. Then switch to whisking the remaining milk mixture in the pot and slowly pouring in the tempered eggs.
Return the pot to the stove and cook over low or medium low heat. Stir constantly with a rubber spatula, alternating between a figure 8 pattern and scraping the sides of the pot.
Continue cooking and stirring until the surface bubbles have disappeared and the mixture has thickened. Once both have occurred remove the pot from the heat. Pour it through the fine mesh sieve into the bowl with the chopped chocolate.
Remove the sieve and leave the mixture to sit for 1 minute before whisking to combine. Then whisk in the vanilla extract.
Place a sheet of plastic wrap onto the surface of the custard and allow it to come to room temperature before storing in the fridge overnight to cool completely.
Make sure any parts of your ice cream maker that need to be frozen are in your freezer as well.

Churning & Assembling

The next day, remove the plastic from the mocha custard and set up your ice cream maker.
Follow the instructions on your ice cream maker to set it up. Pour the chilled custard into the ice cream maker. Churn until it looks like soft serve, it should be thick.
While the ice cream churns, crush the chocolate covered espresso beans with the bottom of a glass or measuring cup.
Line a loaf pan or your desired ice cream storage container.
Once the ice cream has churned, spoon about 1/3 of the ice cream into the container and sprinkle with 1/3 of the chocolate espresso beans. Spoon an additional 1/3 of the ice cream into the container and top with another third of the espresso beans. Repeat with the remaining ice cream and beans.
Place in the freezer to set for at least 4 hours or up to overnight.
When storing for longer term, cover with plastic wrap or a lid to prevent freezer burn.

Notes

Be sure to follow the steps in order. It's important that once you start cooking the custard, everything else is set up and ready to go.

When cooking a custard, the key is low and slow. Don't get impatient when tempering the eggs (meaning add the hot milk mixture slowly) and don't cook on a high heat. It can seem like it is taking a while, although this one goes quite quickly, but all of a sudden it will be thick and the little surface bubbles will have disappeared.

Once the surface bubbles are gone, you can take the custard off the heat. If the custard curdles meaning the egg is cooked to intensely and becomes clumpy, it unfortunately cannot be used and you should start again. BUT as long as you follow the instructions this is pretty unlikely.

Unless you have an extra large ice cream machine, I don't recommend scaling the recipe because it will not be able to churn fully before the frozen portion of the machine begins to defrost.

Nutrition