By chance I happened to make a lovely, but very sweet dessert the other day. Me and my friend’s fascination for it might have been situational as we happened to be in a mountain cottage, but I can’t stop thinking of this dessert. I will refine the recipe on occasion, but here is a rough description for those who fancy some inspiration:
Vanilla ice, chocolate sauce & fruit salad

1) Use whatever sort of vanilla ice cream you like
2) Fruit salad:
Make a syrup. Bring approx 2 dl water, one fresh vanilla stick with seeds, 3 slices each 2 mm of fresh ginger and lots of sugar sugar (I guess I used 2 dl) to boil. Remove vanilla stick and ginger slices after 10 min. Continue to boil until thickened. (I used white sugar, but brown might be great as well.)
Remove syrup from heat. Cut different sorts of fruit into pieces. I used the filets of 2 lime, 1 orange, 2 bananas and a basket of physalis. Spread on a plate and pour the syrup to cover all pieces. Let the fruit soak in the syrup for 30 min.
3) Chocolate sauce:
Melt as much Amedei Toscano Black 70% (available in 1 kg blocks) you like with butter – 4/5 chocolate, 1/5 butter. (Chuao is probably better – it is just great with butter.) Add two teaspoons of the syrup when melted and stir gently. If you use unsalted butter, it might be a good idea to add some salt as it is a nice contrast to the sweet and creamy icecream and fruity, spicy and sweet fruit salad. I guess other sorts of chocolate might be great as well.

Serving: Put pieces of ice cream on a plate with fruit salad and syrup around. Add big clots of chocolate sauce beside. The chocolate will stiffen in contact with the ice cream, so it is better to mix by your own. A mouthful of ice cream, fruit, syrup and melted chocolate = heavenly!

Alex,

Great to hear you love ice cream too, it’s my major passion, even above chocolate. I make all my own, chocolate, chocolate sorbet, coffee, vanilla (goes really well with the chocolate), strawberry, banana etc etc. When I’m on the continent, I trawl for ice cream parlours like you would for chocolate shops. There’s nothing I’ve found in England that’s anything like what I’ve found in Rome, Brussels, Barcelona, Venice, and shipping just isn’t an option!

Elektra

El Rey’s Gran Saman makes good chocolate ice cream because of its comparatively low fat content. Since it’s being mixed with other fatty ingredients, it won’t be so greasy on the tongue, and the intense flavor of the chocolate can handle the cold better.

alex, i don’t know if I’ve told you, but I prefer to make hot chocolate from lactose reduced milk. I like the level of sweetness, rarely necessary to add sugar at all – and I’m kind of sugarloving girl. A friend of mine is lactose intolerant, too, so I’ve tried out alternative ways of making chocolate mousse without cream. Btw, know why there isn’t any lactose reduced cream?

hmm, i don’t know whether they’ve got low-lactose milk here in germany. i’ve seen rice and soy milk. soy i didn’t like so much.

but my intolerance isn’t so bad, and every once in a while i’ll make that sacrifice ;-) and just dig in a bit.

btw, i’ve read/heard that yoghurt products or just plain yoghurt has a low amount of lactose due to the bacteria in it.

<<ce qui fait du bien au palais ne fait du mal à l’âme>>