Mexican "Aztec" Hot Chocolate Ice Cream

For my first submission to Gourmet Unbound I chose to make a Mexican Chocolate Ice Cream using Gourmet's wonderful version from February 2003 as a starting point and combined it with some ideas from David Lebovitz' variation for Aztec Hot Chocolate Ice Cream from "The Perfect Scoop". What resulted was an ice cream that had multiple layers of flavor all playing around together inside a rich creamy dark chocolate base. Heavenly!

You can use all half-and-half if you would prefer. I don't think the end result would suffer much. The Mexican chocolate used here is the kind that is used to make Mexican hot chocolate and of course if you don't have Mexican vanilla by all means use regular. One more note: the use of the chile powders is optional but I do think you will lose some of the complexity. I started my adding a teaspoon of ancho powder at a time until I was happy. I then started with an 1/8th of a teaspoon of the chipotle powder and upped it to 1/4. I should have stayed at an eighth. It didn't ruin it by any means but it got spicier as it chilled and froze and was just a hair too much but it sure amplified the chocolate flavor and added an amazing contrast. Enjoy!

Recipe: Mexican "Aztec" Hot Chocolate Ice Cream

Ingredients

2-3/4 cup half-and-half

1 cup heavy cream

11 oz. Mexican chocolate, chopped

1 teaspoon Mexican vanilla

pinch of salt

2-3 teaspoons ground ancho chile powder

1/8-1/4 teaspoon ground chipotle powder

2 tablespoons bourbon or brandy

Directions

Heat half-and-half and heavy cream in a sauce pan until it starts to foam. Add chocolate and whisk until its completely dissolved. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla, salt, chile powders and bourbon.

Carefully pour mixture into a blender and blend for 30 seconds. Chill mixture thoroughly. Pour into your ice cream maker and follow manufacturer's instructions for your machine.