Orange & Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

There were cartons of half & half and cream sitting in my fridge, and the only thought that came to my head was to make some more ice cream before the cartons expired. Why was I having neglected cartons (not just a carton) of rich liquids like whipping cream and half & half stashed away? It's a long story. The short of it is, I needed those ingredients to test 5 different batches of a recipe for my final project on an online cooking course. But turns out, I overestimate. So, every single day for the last week, my husband was having a small panic attack every time he opened the fridge. He doesn't like to waste any morsel of food, and I applaud his principle and try hard to not waste anything. But sometimes, I run out of energy to calm him down. Since I had no ideas except to make some ice cream by emptying all the cartons, I looked around the kitchen and decided to make some orange flavored ice cream with chocolate chips. That made my husband calm and happy again.

Orange and chocolate is a beautiful combination. I love oranges, especially chocolate dipped orange slices. I add some orange extract to hot chocolate on chilly days, and it warms us to our bones. Since my experiment with making an eggless, ice-cream-maker-less, ice cream was successfull a few weeks ago, I decided to use the same basic approach. This time, I used half & half instead of milk and it made the ice cream so much more richer and creamier (no surprises there).

Ingredients (serves 6-8):

1. 2 cups half & half 
2. 1.5 cups whipping cream
3. zest of two oranges
4. 1 cup sugar
5. 2 tablespoons corn starch whisked in 2-3 tablespoons milk
6. 1 teaspoon orange extract
7. 3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
8. few drops of orange food color (optional; I did not add any food color. The orange zest imparts a pale yellow/orange color)

Orange flavored custard

Preparation:

1. In a sauce pan, mix sugar, half & half, whipping cream, and orange extract. 
2. Heat on medium heat until the mixture comes to a gentle boil. Add the corn starch mixture and whisk well. 
3. Continue heating on low-medium heat (constantly stirring) until the mixture thickens and coats the back of the spatula. (takes about 10 minutes)
4. Remove from heat and immerse the saucepan in a bowl of ice water. Let the custard reach room temperature. Then chill it for 30 minutes in the fridge. 
5. When the custard is chilled, mix orange extract and a few drops of yellow/orange food coloring if desired. Pour custard into a deep and wide baking/freezer safe dish and freeze for 45 minutes.
6. At the end of 45 minutes, remove the custard from the freezer and cream/beat it using an electric beater or a whisk until all the frozen bits are broken. For the next 2 hours and 30 minutes, repeat this process of creaming every 30 minutes. At the end of 2.5 hours, add the semi sweet chocolate chips and freeze (with the dish closed) for 2-4 hours or until the ice cream reaches desired sccopable frozen consistency. 

Scoop and serve with a drizzle of chocolate syrup or a sprinkle of more chocolate chips! The time it takes for the ice cream might be long, but it is not much work to prepare it. Plan to make the custard in the morning or afternoon so that you have time to cream the custard in regular intervals and enjoy the ice cream for dinner.