glace

Paris is one of the great dessert cities of the world (which is one of the reasons why it makes so much sense for the excellent David Lebovitz to have settled there). At certain times of day (starting around five minutes after you thought your breakfast had settled...) it begins to seem as if there's a patisserie on every streetcorner, if not several of them in any given block... all their windows filled with stunning pastries and sweets.

The last time EuroCuisineLady was passing through the City of Light, she was on her way to a business gig, and had an overnight stay in a hotel in the Place des Vosges, Paris's oldest square. The Place is a beautiful place to just lounge or relax, but EuroCuisineLady's work schedule meant she was going to have to spend all of her "break day" and evening hammering on the laptop and sorting out various issues with people who were working on the same project.

Fortunately there was an unusually congenial place to do this. Café Hugo, just down the square from Victor Hugo's old home, offers WiFi access at reasonable rates: so ECL wandered in there, found a comfy table near the door where she could at least watch Paris go by if not actually participate in the scene, had a snack, and got on with business.

The weariness of the end of the work day, though, was broken by something unexpected. On a whim -- or rather, subliminally stimulated by the memory of the glossy gleam of chocolate in all those patisseries she'd seen on her one swift walk around the block early in the afternoon -- ECL asked for some chocolate ice cream for dessert. What she got went way beyond any possible expectation. Her memory is now vague on whether or not the ice cream came from one of the high-end glaciers like Berthillon. But it was terrific: a luscious, rich, creamy ice cream with the most amazing truffle-y mouthfeel, perfectly augmented by a shake of plain dark cocoa over the top.

Normally ECL is not the type to go insane trying to reproduce foods she eats on the Continent. She prefers either to remember them fondly from a distance, or to go back as soon as possible and eat them again. But when EuroCuisineGuy looked up at the electric ice cream maker a week or so ago and muttered, "How long has it been since we used that thing?", the memory of that ice cream drifted to the surface. And there was cocoa in the house, and eggs, and cream, and plenty of chocolate...

The recipe that follows is -- by one of those miraculous flukes that sometimes happens in the kitchen when you're improvising -- very, very close to what ECL had in Café Hugo that evening. The mouthfeel, at least, is right on, due at least partly to the use of both cocoa and chocolate in the mix. It is rich: all cream, no milk, three eggs (well, two egg yolks and a third whole one)... so if you're dieting at the moment, save this for later.

Finally, please note that you really need a mechanical ice cream maker for this.

Click on "read more" for the recipe and the method.