Chocolate & Praline Ice Cream Popsicles
Making these ice cream popsicles is a 3-4 day commitment and I’m telling you it is well worth the wait! Although they are enjoyed as an ice cream, the method does not use a traditional ice cream base. The base is actually a light and fluffy mousse, which means it’s a lot more stable to work with. You’ll just need to pick up some good silicone moulds. I’m using the Silikomart Mini Classic Ice Cream Moulds. This recipe makes 32 Ice creams.
Chocolate Praline Mousse
Ingredients:
200g Whipping cream (a)
8g Vanilla extract
70g Hazelnut praline paste
150g couverture milk chocolate
3g salt
400g Whipping cream (b)
397g can condensed milk
Method:
First get a bowl and place the chocolate, praline paste and salt. Use a small saucepan, heat up your cream (a) and vanilla until just simmering. Immediately pour the hot cream over the chocolate in the bowl and let it sit there for 2 minutes. Mix to combine, ensure all the chocolate is melted through. Now add in the cold cream (b) and combine. This needs to chill it in the fridge for at least 6 hours, preferably overnight.
Once the mix has chilled overnight, transfer it to a stand mixer with a whisk attached. Add the can of condensed milk and whip until thick and silky (medium peaks). Use a spatula to scrape around the bowl and mix through, you might find the whisk hasn’t caught all the stuff at the very bottom of the bowl.
Ideally you would use this all at once but I only have 2 silicone moulds (16 portions), so I do this next stage in 2 batches. Transfer the mousse to a piping bag and pipe into the silicone moulds. Place the little pop sticks in the slots and smooth out the surface with a small cranked pallet knife. Ensure any gaps are filled in and smoothed out, then cover the surface with a sheet of silicone paper and place them in to freeze overnight. Fill the piping bag with the remaining mousse and leave in the fridge overnight.
Once the ice creams have frozen solid, un-mould them and layer them between silicone paper in a tub, return to the freezer. Fill the moulds with the remaining mousse straight away and freeze.
Choc Hazelnut Dip
Ingredients:
250g Couverture milk chocolate
120g Cocoa butter
65g Blanched hazelnuts
Method:
Start by roasting the hazelnuts in the oven. set the oven to 150c and bake for about 10 minutes or until fragrant and just coloured.
Use a microwave safe bowl to melt the chocolate and cocoa butter in short 20-30 second bursts (even better if you can set the microwave power lower so the chocolate can heat low and slow).
While the chocolate is melting, chop the roasted hazelnuts to roughly 3mm chunks. Mix the nuts through the melted chocolate. Find a tall and narrow vessel (like a drinking glass or mug) that will be ideal for dipping your ice creams and pour the chocolate into it.
Get some fresh baking paper sheets and a large container ready. Dip each ice cream into the chocolate mix and place on the baking paper. The chocolate shell will set quite fast so you can safely stack the dipped ice creams between the fresh baking paper in the container.
Keep these in the freezer for snacking. They will keep for up to 3 months, if they last that long!