New Recipe #27: Nutella ice cream

It’s the eighth, last week of Whip It Up!  The final wrap-up post will go live on Sunday, where we will reveal the last batch of recipes, the lucky winner of the prize drawing, and — of course! — fascinating facts and figures from two months of testing new dishes.  Oh, there will be graphs.

For this last theme of dessert, I chose Nutella ice cream, which I first spied depicted in comic-book form by Adam Roberts, The Amateur Gourmet, who found it at Chocolate and Zucchini.  Whew!  It’s like food-blog Telephone/Whisper Down the Alley.  When I found Adam’s post months ago, I sent the link to JG, and he responded, “Awesome.”

Method
This recipe is ridiculously easy.  Two ingredients, just a few steps, and ice cream as a reward for patience.  Although it calls for an ice cream machine, it’s possible to create this dessert without one. I made the ice cream on the same night that I prepped a slow cooker of beef burrito filling for the next day, made a black bean salad, and cooked chili mac for dinner, and that is not at all a testament to my multitasking skill, which seems to view the kitchen as a Do Not Enter zone.  This ice cream is really that simple.

I estimated that one jar of Nutella would be enough for the recipe, but it came up short in my plunger measuring cup, so I added some peanut butter, per one of the original commenters.  As is my unfortunate custom, I used a bowl that was just large enough to hold the ingredients, but not to mix them, so it was a slow whisking process, indeed.  Nevertheless, the hardest part was pouring the chilled mixture into the small mouth of the ice cream machine, and that is something I will not do on my own again.  I am not that coordinated, and I need to accept that.

Taste
The ice cream firmed up in the freezer overnight, and I scooped out a portion for JG last night.  I should clarify that, at our house, we have RA- and JG-size ice cream portions, where JG’s portions are roughly three times the size of mine. When friends come over, they know which size to request, although I’ve noticed that people generally lean toward the RA-size helping.  In any case, I scooped out a JG-size dish of ice cream and tossed in some pretzels, since we love pretzels in Nutella.  In JG’s words, the ice cream was delicious, awesome, rich, and heavy.  In fact, he thinks he should have gone with an RA-size bowl.  How about that?  I took a small taste, and it just about knocked me over.  The hazelnut flavor was very pronounced, and the texture was fantastic, but it was insanely heavy.

Repeat appearance
I think I would make this ice cream again, but I would not top off the jar of Nutella with any peanut butter, and  I might add more evaporated milk to thin out the mixture.  The idea of Nutella-based ice cream is great, but since the spread itself is so thick and rich, the resulting ice cream packs a punch.  I would probably prefer a vanilla-Nutella swirl with hazelnut chunks, but that is certainly more work than this two-ingredient shortcut.  I’d recommend making this ice cream, but a shot glass might be a more appropriate serving vessel than a JG-size bowl.

Nutella Ice Cream
from Chocolate and Zucchini, via The Amateur Gourmet

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups Nutella (approximately one jar)
• 1 1/2 cups + 1 tablespoon evaporated milk (approximately one 12-ounce can)

Directions

1. Whisk nutella and evaporated milk together and chill.
2. Churn mixture in ice cream maker until it reaches desired thickness.
3. Freeze until firm.