Italy - Dessert - Chocolate Gelato / Affogato al Caffè

In my hometown in Connecticut, there used to be this little gelato shop right next to our favorite Italian restaurant. When I was little, I went there and had gelato for the first time! Needless to say, my life was changed forever. Being a chocoholic (it runs in the family), I got chocolate gelato. I've always wanted to make my own, but having no ice cream maker discouraged me to try. I found this recipe from food.com and decided to give it a try for my senior project. To finish, I made my gelato into affogato al caffè, which is espresso poured over a scoop of gelato. When I was in Washington D.C. this fall, I had affogato for the first time and fell in love. I hope you do too!



Ingredients:
8 oz of semi-sweet chocolate
1/2 cup of granulated sugar
5 egg yolks
2 cups of milk
Powdered sugar (if you want it sweeter at the end)
Espresso

Directions:

1. Melt chocolate (second time around, I used semi-sweet) in a double boiler. I put a glass bowl over a large pot of boiling water and melted the chocolate in the bowl. Be careful that the water does boil over since sometimes you can't see the water because of the bowl!

2. Beat egg yolk (you can use the egg whites to make a meringue!) and sugar together in a large bowl until it becomes a bit firm.

3. In a small pot, heat the milk on a medium / low heat, then remove from heat just before it starts to boil (this can also be done in the microwave). Be careful the milk doesn't burn, so stir occasionally. Add the milk to the yolk mixture little by little mixing thoroughly.

4. Heat the mixture again in a large pot (I used the same pot I used to help melt the chocolate) stirring occasionally until it boils and remove from heat.

5. Add melted chocolate and mix thoroughly. Transfer to a chilled metal container and freeze. Stir it every 45 minutes to break any ice lumps and put it back in the freezer. Do this two more times. Taste test your gelato when it starts to get a more ice cream texture (around the 2nd stirring for me). If you want it sweeter, judge the amount of powdered sugar you want to add in. Add in little by little and keep taste testing, folding it in with a spatula (I didn't need sugar second time around because I used semi-sweet chocolate, not unsweetened).

6. After about 7 hrs of freezing, put it through a food processor (or break it up and stir with a fork). My gelato was so hard that I had to break it up into smaller pieces in the bowl before putting it in the food processor. Getting it to that creamy texture you want in the food processor will take a while too. Keep breaking it up and moving it around, stopping and starting often.

7. Store in fridge or freezer depending on consistently and serve! If you want affogato, pour espresso over it, keeping a 1 oz of espresso to 1 scoop of gelato ratio.