Chocolate Ice Cream: Its Story and a Delicious Recipe for You to Make

This might come as a surprise because you might think the world’s first ice cream flavour was vanilla. Milky ice cream-like dessert sure, but it definitely wasn’t vanilla, it was actually chocolate ice cream that came before vanilla. Even though it took a while for chocolate to reach the European shores. In fact, the first ice cream was tested out by freezing drinks, not just any drink, but hot chocolate in the 1600s.

History of Chocolate Ice Cream

The freezing technology came to the Italians via the Arab rule in mostly Sicily around the 9th century onwards. This knowledge was applied to hot chocolate which came from Mexico, the Mayans used to drink something called “xocolatl”, which was a bitter brew of ground cocoa beans. Here is where it all gets a little convoluted because vanilla was swimming in the hot chocolate drunk not only by the Italians but also by the Spanish. The drink was made with vanilla as a flavouring agent with the chocolate drink containing cacao beans, vanilla, corn, water, and ice.

In fact, the earliest records of frozen chocolate can be traced back to the pages of Antonio Latini’s The Modern Steward, 1693. Vanilla didn't feature because it went into the hot chocolate, which was slowly separated out and introduced as a different flavour later. Among other drinks to be frozen were coffee and tea, which were also popular along with the hot chocolate. Latini had two recipes for frozen hot chocolate and it was so popular that Italian doctors were recommending it for ailments like gout and scurvy.

Because of cocoa beans not being local, hot chocolate was a drink that could only be afforded by the elite. But with time as trade routes opened up and things got more commercial, the vanilla was also separated and sold as a separate ice cream flavour. But Italy was already indulging in iced drinks that went beyond these three beverages for a longer time before this, thanks to the Arabs. With time, the royal courts also began serving ice cream with more recipes cropping up and by the 1700s ice cream crossed the borders to the US via the European colonists.

Mechanisation was yet to start when the First Lady of colonial Maryland served ice cream to guests around the mid-1700s. The first President of the United States, George Washington was the first person to buy a mechanical for his personal use. This was around 1784 and in comes Thomas Jefferson, who during his travels acquired a taste for Parisian ice cream which came from the Italians. This was likely because of cross-cultural exchange when Catherine de Medici departed Florence to marry the King of France. Jefferson wrote down recipes and served them at his mansion during his parties.

By the late 1800s ice cream was a hit and flooded the US market. Different varieties started appearing with innovations like ice cream soda and floats appearing with different places claiming to have invented them. In the 1880s the first edible ice cream cups got a patent, around the time milkshakes were being touted and consumed as a healthy drink. Come 1904, the waffle cone also made a grand debut at a fair. With 1923 came the world's first soft serve ice cream or the softies we used to draw, make origami of, and eat from the local ice cream man.

Try this quick dessert recipe and let us know how it tastes!

No-Churn Chocolate Ice Cream: Instant Dessert Recipes

Ingredients

• 400 gm condensed milk (sweet)
• 30 gm Cadbury Cocoa Powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 475 ml heavy cream (chilled)
• 80 gm chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Pour all of the condensed milk into a bowl, and add the cocoa powder and vanilla extract. Combine with a whisk and set aside.
2. Now, take a bigger bowl, and pour the heavy cream. Attach it to a stand mixer or use an electric hand mixer, on medium speed. Do it for 3 minutes when stiff peaks form.
3. Pour the condensed milk mixture into the whipping cream, and add the chocolate chips. Use a spatula to mix them in, liberally.
4. Take a loaf pan, around 9-inch, line it with parchment paper, then scrape this mixture into it. Cover the surface with the excess overhanging parchment paper and freeze overnight.
5. The ice cream will set in 4-6 hours. The excess parchment paper allows easy lifting of the ice cream for later storage.