Several years ago, at the height of the financial and housing crisis in the USA, I consulted an ice cream start up in San Francisco. It was started on a whim by a young woman and her friend that grew up together in Hawaii. Her mom gave her the choice of either going to graduate school or skip grad school and use the money intended for her education as capital for a business. She chose the latter and since then, she has gone from a food trailer that she pulled all over the Bay to a food truck that she drove all over the bay and now, to a brick and mortar store in the Mission District. She had no experience in food but she showed great instincts and business savvy. She was always quick to adapt to customer reactions and even quicker to react when she saw her margins getting eaten up by either labor or food cost. I was there to teach her how to make ice cream but I got a lesson in business smarts.
A few years before she launched her brand, another group in Petaluma,just north of San Francisco in Sonoma County was making waves with their ice cream brand called “Three Twins.” I had my eyes on them because their growth was just unreal. They seemingly came out of nowhere yet they had pints in every store in America. After growing their brand on the west coast, they found a second generation dairy plant in the middle of the country. It was a strategic move to get their product distribution lanes to the mid west and east coast as they expanded their reach.
We took a hard look at their labels and we loved their marketing. The founder was a twin and his twin brother married a twin. That was the inspiration for the cheeky branding. And the labels were green indicating their commitment to using only organic ingredients. But something that bothered me was their ingredient list. They advertised their chocolate ice cream as, “Bittersweet Chocolate” but there wasn’t a gram of chocolate in it. It was made with cocoa powder and cocoa powder is not chocolate. Yes, it is made from cocoa beans just like chocolate is but it is not the same thing as chocolate. Think of it as the powdered form of solids squeezed from the roasted beans without the cocoa butter or the chocolate liquor. It has many uses where chocolate cannot be used such as in sponge cakes, glazes and short doughs but it will never be the bold punch of flavor that chocolate provides.
And I always thought cocoa powder tasted dusty and dry. I always made chocolate ice cream with bittersweet chocolate, 70% or higher. The percentage does count. Firstly, the chocolate is being diluted with the milk. Then the chocolate ice cream is being aerated by at least 30% in the batch freezer. Pumping air into the ice cream base thins the flavor out. Eating it cold numbs the tongue momentarily leaving you to search for the dark chocolate flavor that you’re expecting. So you have to use dark chocolate with a high percentage of solids.
But all that chocolate costs a lot of money. I didn’t even realize just how much it cost until I was hired to develop a flavor for a retail brand. That is where margins matter much more than they do in a restaurant that is supported by 300 hotel rooms above it. The food and beverage in a hotel is along for the ride. Modern hotels want to make money off of the food and beverage outlets but thanks to the room sales leading the revenue drive, there isn’t a ton of pressure to manage the pennies in a hotel food and beverage program. But when you get into grocery stores with a retail item, your margins start being trimmed by the distributor and the grocery store and the pennies matter much more.
Years ago, I developed a collection of chocolate ice creams. I tested all of the different varieties of dark chocolate looking for the right flavor and texture. I did one with just milk, sweeteners and cocoa powder and I remember loving it. It brought me back to my childhood. It was like going to a corner store and reaching down into the freezer and pulling out a frozen chocolate pop. But for whatever reason, I buried the recipe in a file and never made it again.
I took another look at it and tested it again and it is even better than I remembered. It is rich in chocolate flavor, super creamy and completely satisfying. Is it chocolate ice cream? That is debatable between chefs. But there is nothing to debate when it comes to the flavor and texture.
Spin this ice cream in any machine that you have; Pacojet, batch freezer or any table top machine in your kitchen. Pair it with a dark chocolate dessert, praline, pear or caramel. Or, pipe into silicone pop moulds, insert a stick and freeze until it comes out cleanly. Dip it in a hard shell and enjoy it as an Esquimaux.*
Cocoa Ice Cream
2044 g Milk
588 g Sugar
126 g Inverted Sugar
56 g Milk Solids Non Fat
112 g Cocoa Powder Extra Brute 22-24%
12 g Ice Cream Stabilizer Louis Francois
- Mix all of the dry ingredients together
- Warm the milk to 50° C.
- Add the dry ingredients and the inverted sugar.
- Constantly whisk until 85° C is reached.
- Rapidly cool down. Divide into Pacojet beakers and deep freeze or spin in a batch freezer.
Hard Shell Esquimaux Pop
1000 g Dark Chocolate
500 g Cocoa Butter
- Warm the cocoa butter over direct heat or in a microwave.
- Blend it well to make sure it is smooth and free of any unmelted chocolate. Maintain a warm temperature to ensure an even shell.
- Dip the frozen pops in the hard shell and store in the freezer.