Chocolate Chocolate Chip Ice Cream - A Simple Homemade Recipe

This chocolate chocolate chip ice cream is perfect for chocolate ice cream lovers!

It's a chocolate-based ice cream and has lots of chunky chocolate chips added to it. Making this ice cream is super easy. You only need 5 main ingredients and can be made with or even without an ice cream machine.

This chocolate chocolate chip ice cream is a churned ice cream recipe, meant to be made using an ice cream maker. Having said that, the good news is, you can still make this smooth and creamy ice cream without an ice cream machine. All you need is a blender, and you can achieve the same results as an ice cream machine!

The ice cream starts with a light chocolate-flavored base made using milk, cream, sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla, and a tiny bit of salt. Once churned, it is filled with loads of chunky dark and milk chocolate chips for absolutely smooth and creamy, delicious chocolate chip ice cream.

If you don't have an ice cream machine, all you need to do is make the ice cream base (see the step-by-step guide below) and freeze it until it is completely set. Once set, you break it into chunks, pop the chunks into a blender and blend until smooth, to a smoothie consistency. You then pour the blended ice cream back into its container, mix the chocolate chips in, and return it to the freezer to set completely before serving. Easy right?

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How to Make

Ingredients

• Full fat milk
• Heavy whipping cream (with at least 35% fat)
• Brown sugar
• Fine salt
• Cocoa powder
• Vanilla Essence
• Dark and Milk Chocolate chips

Making the chocolate ice cream base

1. Measure sugar into a small bowl. Sift in the cocoa powder into it. Add salt.
2. Mix until the cocoa powder is well dispersed in the sugar. Set it aside.
3. Measure the milk into a measuring jug or pot.
4. Add the sugar-cocoa powder mixture into the milk and stir until the sugar and salt are dissolved. This process should not take more than a minute or two. As you stir the milk, you will feel the sugar and salt grains at the bottom of the bowl or pot. As soon as you don’t feel them anymore, that means the sugar and salt are dissolved.
5. Add the cream.
6. Add the vanilla essence and stir well.

Method 1: Churning the ice cream in an ice cream machine

1. Chill the above-prepared chocolate ice cream base in the fridge for at least 2 hours, until the mixture is completely chilled. You can also leave it in the fridge overnight. If you don't want to wait for 2 hours, put it in the freezer for about an hour. Pour the chilled chocolate chip ice cream base into your ice cream maker bowl. Follow the instructions as stated in your ice cream maker manual on how to operate your machine. Each machine works differently. Also, make sure you have the correct churning pedal attached (in case your machine comes with more than one type of pedal) and that the quantity of the liquid is not exceeding the capacity of your machine. The homemade base can be used for ice cream makers with a capacity of one and a half quarts. Also do note that as the ice cream is being churned, it will increase in volume. So make sure you do not fill your ice cream maker tub anymore than the capacity it is intended for.
2. Turn on the machine and let it churn the ice cream. I churn mine for 1 hour, but be sure to check the maximum time for your machines. At the end of 60 minutes, the ice cream should be perfectly churned. But it may still be a little soft (like a soft-serve ice cream consistency). If the ice cream is too soft, freeze it for a few hours before adding in the chocolate chips to prevent the chips from sinking to the bottom.

Method 2: Using the Blender

• Prepare the ice cream base as above but do not add the chocolate chips. Pour it into a freezer-safe container and freeze until it is completely set (about 4 to 6 hours).
• Once frozen, remove it from the fridge, break it into smaller chunks with a spoon and place the ice cream chunks into the blender.
• Blend the ice cream until smooth. If it is hard to blend, try to press the ice cream chunks down with a spoon (please ensure the blender is turned off when you are doing this).
• Quickly transfer the blended ice cream into a freezer-safe container. Freeze for about an hour before adding in the chocolate chips to avoid them from sinking to the bottom.

Assembling the ice cream

1. This ice cream does not require any major assembling. In fact, all you need to do is add in the chocolate chips into the ice cream maker 2 or 3 minutes from the churning time is up.
2. Alternatively, you can mix in the chocolate chips into the ice cream once you transfer the ice cream out of the ice cream maker bowl.
3. I choose to add the chocolate chips after transfering the ice cream into a freezer safe container. This is simply because my churned ice cream is almost to the top of the ice cream maker bowl and I do not want it to overflow by adding the chocolate chips.
4. When you add the chocolate chips to the ice cream after churning, it is important to ensure the ice cream is not too soft or you risk all the chocolate chips sinking to the bottom. To avoid this, if your ice cream is too soft, freeze it for about an hour or two . Remove it from the freezer and then add the chocolate chips. That way, since the ice cream should be a lot firmer, the chocolate chips would stay in place and not sink.

Serving the homemade chocolate ice cream

• To serve the chocolate chip ice cream, use an ice cream scoop to scoop it into serving cups. The ice cream should not be too hard to scoop if you use the exact same quantity of ingredients mentioned in my recipe card below and the ice cream is frozen at -13 degrees Celsius.
• But if it is hard for some reason, do not worry. Leave the ice cream container out for a few minutes. It should be a lot easier to scoop your ice cream then.

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Notes

Can full fat milk be substituted with low fat milk?

• Even though you can technically substitute full-fat milk with low-fat milk, it will result in your ice cream being a little less creamy and smooth. Hence, for the sake of the creaminess of this ice cream, I would not recommend the substitution.

Adjusting the ratio of milk and cream in the recipe

• Yes, you can. In fact, I have tried experimenting with different ratios of milk and cream to make my homemade ice cream and finally settled with a 1:2 ratio of milk to cream to make my homemade ice cream.
• Generally, the ice cream tastes better with a slightly higher ratio of cream compared to milk. Nevertheless, this is a matter of personal preference and can be adjusted accordingly, provided you keep the final quantity of your homemade ice cream solution as per your ice cream maker specifications.
• Sugar can also be adjusted accordingly.

Can you omit the cocoa powder and leave the ice cream base plain?

• Yes, you can.
• You can also adjust the amount of cocoa powder you wish to add to your ice cream. Slight adjustments will not change the texture of the ice cream but it will make a difference to the taste.
• If you like a stronger chocolate taste, increase the amount of cocoa powder in the ice cream solution. And if you prefer a less intense chocolate taste, reduce it slightly. If you prefer your ice cream to be plain vanilla, omit the cocoa powder totally.
• If after mixing the ice cream solution, you want to add more cocoa powder to it, sift the powder into a small bowl, and pour just a little of the ice cream solution into it. Mix into a thin paste. Add more of the ice cream solution and stir until the chocolate paste dilutes further. Only after that you add it to the ice cream solution. This process will avoid the cocoa powder from clumping in the ice cream solution when added directly to it.
• If you notice any clumps of cocoa powder in your ice cream solution, strain it with a fine sieve to remove the lumps.

Why is it important to mix the cocoa powder with sugar before adding to the milk?

• Cocoa powder tends to be clumpy. Hence is it important to sift it before using it.
• Even after sifting, this powder tends to clump when added directly into the liquid. These clumps are often tiny and very difficult and time-consuming to break and dilute especially when added to large quantities of liquid.
• The best way to add the cocoa powder into the milk is by first mixing it with sugar. That way, the powder disperses in the sugar and that avoids it from forming lumps when added to the milk.

Can you adjust the amount of chocolate chips in the ice cream?

• Yes, you certainly can.
• You can add more if you like, or reduce them the same.
• You can change the combination of the chocolate chips.
• Instead of using chocolate chips, you can also add chocolate shavings into the ice cream. Simply grate a chocolate bar for 100g of shaved chocolate and add it to the ice cream towards the end of the churning time.

Is it necessary to chill the ice cream solution before churning it?

• A thoroughly chilled ice cream solution will take the ice cream machine a shorter time to churn because the solution is already well chilled, hence the need to chill it first before churning.

What is the best temperature to freeze the ice cream?

• This churned ice cream requires a negative thirteen (-13) degrees Celsius temperature to freeze well.

What if the ice cream is too hard to scoop?

• If you find it hard to scoop the ice cream after long hours of freezing, simply leave it out at room temperature for a minute or two (or slightly longer if your room temperature is not so warm) and try scooping it after that.

Like this homemade ice cream recipe? Here are my other posts you might want to check out

• Homemade Chocolate Ice Cream - Perfectly Smooth & Creamy
• No Churn Chocolate Ice Cream - Amazingly Smooth & Creamy
• Matcha Ice Cream (Green Tea Ice Cream)
• Homemade No-Churn Ice Cream - The Easiest!
• Kinder Bueno Ice Cream - Easy Homemade Recipe
• Mint Oreo Ice Cream - An Easy Homemade Recipe
• Lychee Ice Cream Recipe - Creamy and Luscious (How to Make)
• Churned Ice Cream - With & Without Ice Cream Maker

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Recipe (Printable)

Here is the full printable version of my homemade chocolate chocolate chip ice cream recipe.

📖Recipe

And that's that. My super yummy and super easy homemade chocolate chocolate chip ice cream recipe!

Enjoy!