Gelato all'italiana

I think ice-cream is the best thing about summer. There’s nothing better than eating it on an unbearably hot day. Of course by the end of the season you can get fed up with the whole ice-cream business, and that’s okay, because everything will start again next year.

This year I’ve been thinking a lot about making my own gelato, especially because shop-bought ones are full of unwanted additives, and if not, they’re really expensive. But of course making ice-cream can be really difficult if you don’t have the right recipe, because then you would need an expensive ice-cream maker. So finding the best and easiest recipe was essential for me.

About a week ago I’ve been watching a program called Made in Italy: Top 10 Classic Dishes in which the beautiful Michela Chiappa introduced the viewers to a real Italian delight: home-made, no-fuss chocolate and hazelnut bacio gelato. And it is what it says on the tin: easy, quick and delicious.

The base of the ice-cream is double cream, condensed milk and good quality vanilla extract. The rest depends on your taste. And that’s a good thing, because I couldn’t find hazelnut bacio, and it would’ve been too expensive anyway, so I just put in some dark chocolate instead. I also changed the quantities a bit, so the ice-cream would fit in our really small refrigerator.

Chocolate and Hazelnut home-made gelato

(based on the recipe by The Chiappa Sisters)

Ingredients:

400ml double cream

2 tubes of 170g condensed milk*

2 tsp vanilla extract

3 tbsp coco powder

100g whole hazelnuts

ca. 60g dark chocolate

1-2 tbsp icing sugar

(The original recipe makes about 1 kg of ice-cream.)

Step 1. Put the hazelnuts into a frying pan over medium heat and dust them with the icing sugar. Stir the hazelnuts so that they become coated in it.** Move them around occasionally so they don’t burn. Once they’re golden, use a mortar to bash them into medium sized pieces, or you can use a blender as I did, but beware not to blend the hazelnuts into dust.

Step 2. Pour your double cream, condensed milk and vanilla extract into a bowl and whisk to soft peaks. Don’t overbeat!

Step 3. Put your coco powder in the mix and whisk it in as well.

Step 4. Fold in your hazelnuts and shredded chocolate, too, but keep some for decoration if you wish.

Step 5. Pour the whole thing into a freezable container and decorate with the remaining hazelnuts and chocolate shreds. Then put the ice-cream into the refrigerator for about 4-5 hours till it freezes.

And here you go, you’re home-made Italian gelato is ready. Enjoy!

*Now you must know that this is a lot of condensed milk, especially because it contains a lot of sugar, so it could be too sweet for your taste, but I think you will be okay if you use one tube of unsweetened condensed milk and one regular. Or just use less sweet ingredients, like lemon etc. It’s also good to know that your ice-cream will be less sweet once frozen.

**The hazelnuts I bought still had their skin on and I made the mistake of using the icing sugar before I could remove it completely, so basically I got these rather rustic (or simply messed up) hazelnuts in the end. Still, they taste incredible. You doesn't need to use icing sugar, though. If you're worried that your gelato will be too sweet, just omit it completely. But make sure you toast those hazelnuts.