Decadent Valrhona Chocolate & Peppermint Candy Ice Cream

Were you left with copious amounts of peppermint candy canes?  I was...and I didn't want to toss them.  Its candy!  You can't pitch perfectly good candy!  I had considered making brownies and putting them on top of a creamy buttercream frosting but blah.  Everyone has done that.  Nah!  I made ice cream.  But not your normal run of the mill ice cream.  Boooooring!  I upped the ante BIG time and made a super zippy pink peppermint ice cream studded with dark chocolate Valrhona pearls.


A few weeks ago I spotted these Valrhona pearls sold bulk at my market.  They are small pellets of crunchy biscuit (think almost a shortbread or the middle of a Twix bar for comparison) covered in layers of shiny dark chocolate.  I didn't know what I'd exactly DO with them but I wanted them.  So they sat taunting me for near two weeks as I pondered what to do with them.  Putting them in a cookie seemed kinda redundant...in a brownie they would just get lost and not noticed....but ice cream seemed the perfect vehicle for my new chocolatey pearls of delight.  And in this recipe in particular they would just be awesome possum.  You'd get the crispy mint from the candy canes, the creamy custard ice cream base and then BOOM!  A crunchy chocolatey bite in every spoonful.  It was madness I tell you!  Madness!


With sheer anticipation, I set out making this ice cream and I can tell you, I was excited before about the Bourbon Ice Cream but this...oh...I paced the freezer, peeking on it 500 times until I could taste a glorified spoonful in all its frozen glory.  Hubby would be lucky if he got one ounce of this wonder joy on a spoon!  I adapted this recipe from other site...and happily to say, even if you don't have an ice cream maker, from other reviewers, I see you can make this ice cream with no real problem.  You just need to let it freeze longer.

So crunch up all those candies and give this a whirl!  Sooo addictive!  (and perfect on top of a warmed sinfully dark chocolate brownie but not like I would know anything about such things...never.  Nope.)

Chocolate & Peppermint Candy Ice Cream

4 egg yolks
1½ cup half-and-half cream
¾ cup sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
2 cups whipping cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2½ teaspoons peppermint extract
1 cup crushed peppermint candies
1 cup Valrhona dark chocolate crunchy pearls
10-15 drops of red food coloring (or more, to liking)

In a heavy saucepan, whisk egg yolks, half-and-half, sugar and salt. Cook and stir over low heat until mixture reaches 160 degrees F and coats the back of a metal spoon. Remove from the heat. Place pan in a bowl of ice water; stir for 2 minutes. Stir in whipping cream and vanilla. Press plastic wrap onto surface of custard. Refrigerate for several hours or overnight.

Fill cylinder of ice cream freezer two-thirds full. (Refrigerate any remaining mixture until ready to freeze.) Process according to the ice cream manufacturer’s directions for your machine. Pour into your container for freezing.  Stir in peppermint candy and chocolate pearls by hand, making sure to distribute as evenly as you can. Allow to ripen in ice cream freezer or firm up in the refrigerator freeze for 2-4 hours before serving.

(If you're not using a ice cream maker, after you thoroughly chill the custard part....stir in your candy and chocolate pearls and then pour into a container that seals, like a Glad plastic one.  Freeze overnight.  Yours will not have the churned consistency of ice cream made in a traditional ice cream maker, as it incorporates air to fluff it up, so you will have a thicker, denser quality ice cream.)