An Ice Cream Classic Redone

One of the best ice cream flavors is fudge ripple . It's a classic that goes well as a scoop, sundae or soda.Imagine a homemade version, spiked with malt.You can, thanks to a recipe in yesterday's New York Times Food section.

Melissa Clark wrote abut this in her A Good Appetite column. The inspiration comes from The Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory where she got a double shot of malt in her chocolate malted.Her recipe for fudge ripple is a marriage of  malted vanilla ice cream with a malt shot veins of dark chocolate.There was only one problem with the original recipe. Malt powder is tooth achingly sweet. According to Ms. Clark it's made with heaps of sugar which will impact the flavors tremendously.A better solution is to augment the powder with barley malt syrup, a dark sticky amber liquid.It's heady  and thick but not too sweet.Dilute the malt powder with it to create a richer more layered flavor. Health food stores carry it but it can also be bought at Amazon online (it is pricey, however with a twenty ounce jar costing close to fifteen dollars).If you can't get it stick with the malt powder but maybe cut down on the amount used, from the original 2/3 cup to maybe 1/3.for the base.

The ice cream base is a traditional  French vanilla with two cups of heavy cream and six egg yolks to give it body (save the whites for meringue nests to nest the ice cream if you're ambitious enough) Light brown sugar is added instead the usual white for a mellower, more complex flavor. The fudge ripple is made with  the barley malt syrup  too, mixed with unsweetened Dutch process cocoa.  According to Ms Clark adding the syrup will give it a double duty.It adds a punch of flavor but also keeps the fudge sauce supple in the ice cream. The finished product ends up with soft ripples instead of those rock hard seams that come with store bought fudge ripple.I wonder if this recipe can be varied, with one, making it Philadelphia style without the egg yolks and two, with a coffee or even chocolate ice cream base. There are recipes for these on the net. The malted vein would definitely work with the flavors. Be warned , however.Ms. Clark's recipe is a labor intensive one, with the cream being heated with the milk, then adding the eggs, followed by straining. The marbling is easy.It's a layer of ice cream, then a layer of the fudge sauce, then another layer of ice cream followed by more fudge sauce. She served it with either fresh whipped cream or crushed malted milk balls.

Homemade fudge ripple ice cream is the ultimate dream for any foodie. Imagine it with fresh whipped cream , with the malted taste blending perfectly with the chocolate and vanilla. It truly is an ice cream lover's dream.