Erin Fox
Sweet Treats
It may be hard to believe, but sometimes there’s some leftover chocolate after Easter. If the idea of eating one more mini egg makes you want to scream, then read no more. If you are a committed chocolate fan and could indulge in Easter eggs until the ends of days, then you will love this mini egg ice cream served up in – you guessed it! – a chocolate egg.
Although mini eggs are used in this recipe, you can use broken pieces of chocolate egg or some bashed up creme eggs; or better yet, all three! You can make this ice cream all year round, substituting the mini eggs for smarties or M&Ms. You will need:
- 300ml whole milk
- 250ml double cream
- Four egg yolks
- 125g/4oz golden caster sugar
- 1 vanilla pod split lengthways
- 100g mini eggs or micro mini eggs
Scrape the seeds out of the vanilla pod and place the seeds and the scraped pod into a pan with the milk and the double cream. Slowly bring to the boil and then remove from the heat. Meanwhile, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together in the bowl of an electric mixer for five minutes until thickened.
Pour a little of the cream and milk into the egg mixture and whisk. Return the egg mixture to the pan and bring back to the boil stirring all the time.
Bubbling
As soon as you see signs of bubbling, quickly remove the pan from the heat pour the custard into a heatproof bowl. Cover with cling film and leave aside to cool. You can place the bowl on a bed of ice in a bigger bowl to help cool the custard. Once it has cooled completely, fish out the scraped vanilla pods.
Pour the cooled mixture into the ice cream churner following the instructions on the churner. This usually takes about 35 minutes. When the ice cream has finished nearly churning, about three minutes towards the end, shake in the bag of mini eggs.
Once it has finished churning, quickly tip the mixture into the container. Freeze until solid. Remove the ice cream from the fridge half an hour before serving. Chill the chocolate egg in the fridge for one hour before serving. Smash the egg into large pieces and serve a scoop of ice cream onto each shell.
Alternative ways of serving: scoop the ice cream into cones and for a dramatic look, top with a large piece of chocolate egg.
Knock a hole into the top of a large hollow chocolate egg and before freezing the ice cream, pour it into the hollow egg and wrap in tin foil. Freeze until solid.