Chocolate Mint Ice Cream -- The Week the Cake Was Love

Week 497, and the apples arriving, the squash at the farm stand, the light turning golden, the kitchen shifting to soups and stews. I am 68 years old and the days have a rhythm now — the morning writing, the afternoon visits to Cedarhurst, the evening cooking, the weekly blog post — and the rhythm is the structure, and the structure is the sanity, and the sanity is required because the rest of it, the losing and the loving and the carrying, requires a sane woman at the helm, and I am sane, mostly, except when I cry in the car in the Cedarhurst parking lot, which is not insanity but its opposite: the specific, targeted release of emotion in a contained space, which is the most rational thing I do all week.

Valentine's Day #44; no response to card; cake eaten; cake is love. These are the facts of the week, the data points, the things I would put in a report if I were writing a report, which I am not — I am writing a life, and the life includes the facts but is not limited to them, because the life also includes the way the kitchen smells at six in the morning when the coffee is brewing and the challah is rising and the house is quiet and the quiet is both the grief and the peace, simultaneously, and the simultaneous is the condition, the permanent condition of a woman who is 68 and alone and not alone, who is a grandmother and a wife and a writer and a cook and a caregiver and all of these things at once, always at once, braided together like the challah.

I made chocolate cake this week — because it was what the week needed, because the week always needs something and the something is always food, and the food is always the answer, and the answer is always the kitchen, and the kitchen is always mine, and the mine-ness of the kitchen is the one thing that has not changed in sixty-seven years of living, from Sylvia's kitchen on the Grand Concourse to this kitchen in Oceanside where I stand every morning and every evening and many of the hours in between, making the food that is the chain, that is the love, that is the thing I do when I don't know what else to do, which is always, and especially now.

I brought food to Marvin at the usual time. The visit was what visits are now — quiet, steady, the feeding by hand when necessary, the reading aloud always, the holding of the hand that may or may not know it is being held but that is warm and alive and present, which is the definition of love in this particular year: warm and alive and present. He ate what I brought. He received what I gave. The receiving is the relationship. The receiving is the vow. In sickness and in health, in recognition and in forgetting, in the recliner and in the kitchen, the receiving is the marriage, and the marriage continues, one container at a time, one visit at a time, one day at a time, at two o'clock, every day, because the chain does not break.

The chocolate cake I made this week was not a celebration — it was a declaration, the way food always is in this kitchen, the way it has always been: I made it because the week needed it, because Marvin received it, because the receiving is the vow. And now, with the last of the cake gone and Valentine’s Day #44 behind me, I find myself reaching for something cool and quiet and still deeply chocolate — this Chocolate Mint Ice Cream, which carries the same devotion in a different key, something you can make and keep, something that waits in the freezer the way love waits, patient and cold and ready when you need it.

Chocolate Mint Ice Cream

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 10 minutes | Total Time: 4 hours 30 minutes (includes chilling and freezing) | Servings: 8

Ingredients

• 2 cups heavy whipping cream
• 1 cup whole milk
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 4 large egg yolks
• 1 teaspoon peppermint extract
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
• Pinch of salt

Instructions

1. Combine the base. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, whisk together the milk, 1 cup of the heavy cream, cocoa powder, and sugar until the cocoa and sugar are fully dissolved and the mixture is smooth and just beginning to steam, about 5 minutes. Do not boil.
2. Temper the eggs. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the salt until pale and slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Slowly ladle about 1/2 cup of the warm cocoa mixture into the yolks while whisking constantly to temper them, then pour the yolk mixture back into the saucepan.
3. Cook the custard. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon or heatproof spatula, until the custard thickens enough to coat the back of the spoon, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat immediately.
4. Chill the custard. Stir in the remaining 1 cup of heavy cream, the peppermint extract, and the vanilla extract. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a clean bowl. Press plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the custard and refrigerate until completely cold, at least 4 hours or overnight.
5. Churn the ice cream. Pour the chilled custard into your ice cream maker and churn according to the manufacturer’s instructions, usually 20–25 minutes, until it reaches a soft-serve consistency.
6. Fold and freeze. During the last 2 minutes of churning, add the mini chocolate chips. Transfer the ice cream to a freezer-safe container, smooth the top, and press plastic wrap against the surface. Freeze for at least 2 hours until firm.
7. Serve. Let the ice cream sit at room temperature for 3–5 minutes before scooping. Serve in bowls or cones, plain or with a drizzle of chocolate sauce.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 340 | Protein: 5g | Fat: 22g | Carbs: 32g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 55mg