Coffee Ice Cream

The recipe called for 3/4 cup of strong coffee, chilled. I don't drink black coffee, I drink iced vanilla cappuccinos. And am quite addicted to them. But since I don't have much experience making regular coffee, I bought instant (yes, instant) coffee. The coffee is suppose to be mixed in a ratio of 6 oz. water to 1 packet coffee. But to make it extra strong, I used 3 packets. Which was probably too much, but I really wanted the flavor there. I stuck that in the freezer to chill while I mixed everything else together: ricotta, yogurt and sugar in the food processor, and cinnamon, chocolate (I used a zester, so the bits of chocolate are quite small) and coffee in a bowl. Then I mixed them together and popped it in the freezer to chill.

About an hour later, the edges were getting stiff, so I stirred it and put it back in the freezer. An hour and a half after that, I stirred it again, and this time it was mostly frozen. At this point I added a bit more chocolate, as well as broken up chunks of Oreo! I did taste a bit at this point too. Too cinnamony! And I did use the 1/2 teaspoon like it called for. So next time, little, or no, cinnamon. And more vanilla!

I let it chill until I was ready to have some. And it was IMPOSSIBLE to scoop. I tried letting it sit out for a bit, I tried a hot ice cream scoop, I even tried using a knife to cut it. The knife was the only thing that sort of worked. It was disappointing. But when I finally did get some in a bowl to eat, it wasn't as good as I was expecting. I had tried a few little pieces before I decided to have a scoop, and those were always good, but when I scooped it out, it was gritty and overly cinnamony. The ricotta cheese was not a good choice for ice cream, I don't care how healthy it is. I like the idea of the ice cream, but next time I'm going to play with a regular vanilla ice cream recipe, using an ice cream maker. I suppose I'll have to get one of those...

From Easy Healthy, 2007

Ingredients

3/4 cup strong black coffee, cooled and chilled

1 square semi-sweet chocolate

1 cup ricotta cheese

5 tablespoons low-fat plain yogurt

3/8 cup superfine sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Dash of vanilla extract

Generous 2 tablespoons chocolate flakes, plus extra to decorate

Directions

1. Make the coffee in advance and leave in the refrigerator to chill. Grate the chocolate and set aside. Put the ricotta cheese, yogurt, and sugar in a blender or food processor and process until a smooth puree forms. Transfer to a large bowl and beat in the coffee, cinnamon, vanilla and grated chocolate.

2. Spoon the mixture into a freezer-proof container and freeze for 1 1/2 hours, or until slushy. Remove from the freezer, turn into a bowl, and beat. Return to the container and freeze for 1 1/2 hours.

3. Repeat this beating and freezing process twice more before serving in scoops, decorated with chocolate flakes. Alternatively, leave in the freezer until 15 minutes before serving, then transfer to the refrigerator to soften slightly before scooping.