Black Cocoa Ice Cream
Unbelievably smooth, creamy ice cream made with black cocoa. This recipe for black cocoa ice cream is eggless and tastes of rich, dark, dark chocolate.
Unbelievably chocolatey, smooth dark chocolate ice cream made with black cocoa. This recipe is eggless, and is churned in an ice cream machine.
Oh my godddddd. This ice cream is insane, insane!!! It’s so dark, rich and freakin’ SMOOTH – even without egg yolks. If you like chocolate ice cream, and if you’ve tasted black cocoa and loved it, well this one is for youuuu.
Black Cocoa Ice Cream Ingredients
Black Cocoa: A cocoa powder that has been heavily dutched (alkalized). I think it’s important to note that black cocoa isn’t ‘chocolatey’ in the traditional sense, especially if you are the kind of chocolate person that loves a hershey’s bar. Black cocoa is dark and almost smoky.
If you wanted, you can use a double dutch cocoa (there are blends of black and dutch cocoa or you can split the cocoa in half and use half of each) to get a slightly less strong black cocoa taste.
Milk: I use whole milk, I think you could go to 2% but I’d avoid skim as low-fat options will lead to a less creamier ice cream. If you wanted to make this dairy-free, use a milk with a higher fat content like coconut milk.
Sugar: You don’t have to use brown, but I think it adds something nice to the undertones – a little nuance.
Heavy cream: or heavy whipping cream. If you were trying to make a dairy-free version use coconut cream here.
Cornstarch: This is a thickening agent, a little trick I learned from my gelato-making days. We aren’t using egg yolks here but we’ll cook the base until it’s slightly thickened and doing this will keep the ice cream creamy rather than icy when frozen.
How to make Black Cocoa Ice Cream
Most of the heavy work is going to be done by our ice cream machine but there’s a few steps to getting the custard ready for the churn:
Make a slurry with some of the milk and the cornstarch
Begin cooking the ice cream base: the sugar, remaining milk, heavy cream.
Sift in the black cocoa
Once the sugar has dissolved, add the slurry then cook until thickened; this is very similar to the way a pudding is made.
Once it has thickened, remove it from the heat and add the vanilla.
Chill the base for at least 8 hours.
Never attempt to churn a warm ice cream base, at the very least have it in the fridge for 4 hours before churning.
Churn the base according to your ice cream machine instructions (some have you freeze the bowl).
Now you can freeze it. Store it in an airtight, freezer-safe container.
What’s the difference between a no churn and a churned ice cream?
One needs an ice cream machine and one does not. Ice cream machines ‘churn’ which is to say they stir air into the custard base slowly as it freezes. Most ice cream is churned, this process means that you won’t get those nasty ice crystals.
A no churn ice cream usually has you whipping the heavy cream *before* it’s frozen, doing this also prevents ice crystals from forming and you’ll also get a creamier base. In no churn ice creams you won’t have egg yolks, usually these recipes use sweetened condensed milk which has all the sugar and fat you need to keep it creamy.
Is one superior? Although this blog is brimming with no churn recipes, they are so much more accessible to everyone after all, there is nothing like a churned ice cream which is fully liquid as a base (rather than airy) and unbelievably creamy when frozen.
This black cocoa ice cream is churned – you’ll need a machine! We’ll talk about no churn options at a later date (and I’ll update this section here accordingly).
Ice cream machine options: I had the kitchen aid bowl attachment for 5 years, but earlier this year splurged on this one (which I only recommend if you are a frequent ice cream maker); because I don’t have to freeze the bowl and can go from turning it on to churning – yay!
Why doesn’t this recipe have egg yolks?
Truthfully because I wouldn’t know what to do with *six* to even eight egg whites. Ok fine, I would and I’d do it happily BUT we simply don’t need them here. In fact, having them would change the taste and texture of the ice cream, making it heavier and more custard-like. We are going for a gelato-like texture here, something light but fully committed to an intense flavor profile.
Where can I find a good quality black cocoa?
King Arthur Baking Co. makes a great black cocoa, you can also uses Hershey’s Special Dark (although that is closer to a dutch than a pure black).
What else can I bake with black cocoa?
Chocolate Mascarpone Buttercream
Black Cocoa Ice Cream Recipe
Black Cocoa Ice Cream
Ingredients
- 1 cup milk plus ¼ cup 240g plus 30g
- 1 ½ tablespoons cornstarch or tapioca starch
- ½ - ⅔ cup black cocoa depending on how strong you want it, 50g-65g
- 1 cup brown sugar light or dark, 200g
- 2 cups heavy cream 480g
- Pinch fine sea salt
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
Method
- In a small bowl, whisk together the ¼ milk and the cornstarch. Set aside.
- Add the cocoa, sugar, heavy cream, salt, and 1 cup milk to a medium-sized pot and cook until the sugar dissolves, over medium low heat.
- Add the cornstarch mix and cook on medium low until the mix begins to thicken on the bottom, whisking constantly.
- Remove from heat, pour into a heatproof container and add the vanilla, stir to combine. Allow it to come to room temperature then cover and set in the fridge to chill.
- Once fully chilled you can add it to your ice cream machine (often the bowl will need to be frozen overnight before churning) and freeze. Store in an airtight container or a loaf pan covered with plastic wrap (make sure the wrap is pressed into the ice cream so you don’t get any freezer burn).
Notes
Did you make this recipe?
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Works really well with slight changes to the ingredients and a smaller batch (but same proportion and method)!
I used: regular cocoa powder, orange peel and vanilla bean sugar + brown sugar, milk powder, espresso powder, oat milk, and tapioca starch.
Oat milk because I prefer it for drinks, so it’s what I have on hand. I added milk powder to compensate, but only up to the maximum cocoa powder weight (recipe says 50-65 g cocoa, so I did 50g cocoa + 15g milk powder) to keep the dry ingredient and fat ratio from being too high.
A pinch of espresso added at the same time as the tapioca, just to deepen the chocolate flavor. Can’t taste any coffee and would be fine without as well.
The flavor was wonderful! I love orange and chocolate together, but I can tell this would be really great even without the orange. I will say that this makes a smooth product, but I still get some chalkiness. It might be that I need to bloom the cocoa powder in the heavy cream rather than oat milk because it contains more fat to properly dissolve it. Still a very scoopable ice cream 🙂
Hi Mig, thanks for the review and your note changes! Sounds like you made an oat chocolate orange ice cream (not black cocoa, hehe) though I am glad it worked out for you.
Wow. I just made this using King Arthur Triple blend cocoa which includes black cocoa and others, wow so good. And so rich despite having no eggs. And so easy. I’ll be repeating this asap. Thanks Sam 🙂
My hubs is usually skeptical of chocolate ice creams since so many are chalky, but he loved this one. Rich but not cloying. And I’m sure that in this economy people will enjoy that it’s egg free.
wud love to try this recipe
I cut the recipe down to fit my one serving size ice cream maker and because I was too impatient to wait I made it without the cornstarch and I also used A2 whole milk only, it was so so good. I am getting ready to make the actual recipe with regular milk and cream for my husband and grandson, whenever he visits the two of them have ice cream together after supper, every night, (our daughter has warned us to not let him gain weight while he is with us), I will be adding dark chocolate chips and sliced almonds, when we lived in Louisiana My husband loved Albertsons Chocolate Chocolate Chunk Almond ice cream and as we don’t have an Albertsons here in South Carolina I am hoping that this recipe will work, Thanks so much
The best dark chocolate ice cream I have ever tasted. so good. will make this every few weeks for the family and friends. outstanding recipe.thank you.
oh wow, this is wonderful to hear!
my family loves!! this ice cream! I made it in my ninja creami. The recipe makes two pints’ worth. I left one plain and the other added dark chocolate chips as a mix-in.
I occasionally try my hand at making df ice cream for my lactose intolerant daughter. I followed this recipe pretty closely. Made it dairy free by subbing the heavy cream with 1-can of Trader Joes oganic coconut cream (13.5 oz vs 2 cups). The milk was subbed with almond milk so I added 1 egg yolk to increase amount of fat (2 might be better). I also added 1.4 oz bar of melted 88% cacao bar. Delicious!
This ice cream is INSANE. So deeply chocolatey, so unbelievably creamy, it doesn’t even feel real the first bite you take. Cannot recommend this highly enough for all of the chocolate lovers out there!!
If you sometimes have a dessert and think it’s too chocolatey, then this probably isn’t for you. But if you (like me) like your brownie sundaes with chocolate overload ice cream and extra fudge sauce, then this is your HEAVEN. The first time I tasted it I basically had an out-of-body experience– it’s really that good. I’m not even sure how to describe how rich and deeply chocolate it is, you just have to try it!!
This is so good! It’s like the best chocolate ice cream ever, not too sweet and perfectly chocolatey. If you’ve made Sam’s chocolate mascarpone buttercream with black cocoa, this is essentially that in ice cream form. It’s amazing!
I made this and it’s excellent!! So dangerously easy to make! I love the texture of this ice cream and I’m wondering if I wanted to make a vanilla bean variation, if I’d just omit the chocolate and add more vanilla/vanilla beans?! Thank you!
So creamy, the texture is incredible. Lovely deep cocoa taste (I used a mix of Hershey’s dark and regular cocoa). I know this would be dreamy layered with cake for a frozen treat, will try that next!
Loved this! A really mellow, chocolate pudding like flavor and excellent, smooth texture! I was running low on black cocoa, so I used half black and half ghirardelli majestic, but still used the full 65g in total.
Could this be made with sugar free Brown sugar?
Hi Sam, have you made this with the dairy-free options or not yet? Thanks!
I haven’t myself… I’d suggest a dairy free heavy cream and a full-fat df milk.