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Stracciatella Gelato

Stracciatella Gelato

Stracciatella Gelato is kind of like American chocolate chip ice cream, except completely different. Instead of the chips and sometimes chunks you find in American product, Stracciattella has fine bits of chocolate throughout, which results in a smooth texture with just the slightest crunch in every bite. This is achieved by drizzling in a thin stream of melted chocolate during the final stages of churning, which hardens on contact and gets broken up as it churns. My two previous gelato recipes, chocolate and pistachio, were Sicilian style gelato, which has no egg or cream and is thickened with a crema rinforzata made from milk, sugar and cornstarch. Here, for a little variety, I went with a Northern Italian style vanilla gelato, made with an egg based custard.

Stracciatella Gelato Recipe

Prep time: | Total time:

Makes About 1 Quart

2 cups whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
4 egg yolks
1 cup heavy cream
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

  1. Stir the milk and sugar together in a medium sauce pan over medium heat and add the vanilla bean. Heat until bubbles begin to form around the edges. Remove the pan from the heat and steep for 15 minutes.
  2. In a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks together. Slowly whisk the warm milk mixture into the egg yolks and transfer the mixture back to the sauce pan. Cook over medium heat stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until mixture thickens and coats the back of the spoon, 8 – 10 minutes and remove custard from heat.
  3. Pour the cream into a large bowl and place a mesh strainer on top. Pour the custard through the strainer, discarding the vanilla bean, and stir it into the cream. Cover and refrigerate until chilled.
  4. Remove custard from refrigerator and process in ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions. While ice cream is churning melt chocolate in a sauté pan over low heat or in the microwave. Drizzle a very thin stream of the chocolate into the gelato during the last few minutes of churning.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, June 14th, 2009 at 8:27 pm and is filed under Gelato and Granita. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • TasteStopping

    If it wasn’t already, now is the time to fire up my ice cream maker. I love the simple, wholesome list of ingredients. Can’t wait to try it; I’m sure my kids will thank you!

    I found you on TasteSpotting and am writing to say that if you have any photos that aren’t accepted there, I’d love to publish them. Visit my new site (below), it’s a lot of fun! I hope you will consider it.

    Best,
    Casey

    http://www.tastestopping.wordpress.com

  • Sara

    Yet another reason to get the ice cream maker out of the freezer…

  • melody

    This looks awesome and I just bought an ice cream maker this last weekend. Can’t wait to try this.

  • rantingchef

    We don’t have an ice cream maker. We make ours and just freeze it. It comes out a treat, those machines are so expensive for the amount of use they get!! Just goes to show that you don’t really need one.

  • Williams

    nice articel, thanks

  • Williams
  • uspeh

    great icecream
    uspeh bumaga

  • bracha yarden

    I’ve made this a few times and it’s always good. Even my underweight son with no appetite likes it! We don’t have an ice cream maker, I stir the gelato well every half hour or so until it’s ready. Also, I blend the eggs and sugar, then add the warm milk while the blender runs, and put the lot back in the pot on the gas. (Lo.) Then I blend the custard before and after the refrigeration stage. This sounds a lot of work – it isn’t but you need to be at home that day. I do the custard the day before and refrigerate overnight – but if/when Cuisinart start selling their home ice cream maker in Israel we’ll buy one!

    The melted chocolate threads I drizzle on warp&weft-ways, and we have chocolate lace in our icecream! Much finer than the choc looks in this photo.

    A hot day in Connecticut? Try the heat here, we regularly hit 45C.

  • http://fatgirltrappedinaskinnybody.blogspot.com julia

    I found this on tastespotting, looks delicious. Can’t wait to make it.

  • http://pastamakerinfo.com pasta maker

    Funny names food have these days. But my, they look delicious!
    Thank you for the share!

  • http://www.gelato-eis.de Eiscreme

    Oh, i love Stracciatella Ice-creme.
    I will try this recipe.
    Thanks for the tip!

  • http://www.gsgelato.com/ gelato italy

    I just love Stracciatella Gelato. gelato with a vanilla base and chocolate shavings is also called stracciatella or stracciatella ice.

  • http://rocketspanish-reviewpros.com/ Evia

    I am fortunate enough to live in the US but near a genuine gelato shop. The owners are from Naples, Italy. So I get to have my stracciatella fix. I never even considered that I could make my own. I thought it would be a secret! I must give this a try – thanks!

  • http://www.italianchef.com/blog/2009/06/14/stracciatella-gelato/ Natalie

    I attempted this a few days ago. First time making ice cream in general so therefore first time making stracciatella. I have visited Italy and fell in love with stracciatella. In my first attempt I over cooked the custard and therefore had a scrambled egg milk concoction. Started over and cooked custard until just before that happened. I continued with no problems. I don’t have an ice cream maker so instead removed from the freezer every 30 mins or so to stir and break up ice crystals. As it was freezing I noticed a different smell. I thought, “well, maybe because its still not frozen.” I tasted it when it was a few hours in and still it was strange. The next day (after completely frozen) it was the same thing. I thought maybe I didn’t have the palate for gelato or something. Husband said it tasted like cheese. I went to go use the remainder of the cream a day later…….turns out we had BAD CREAM!! It was brand new but was HORRIBLE. People, check your ingredients before embarking on this recipe. Don’t do what I did :( I thought this was just a bad recipe but now that I know it was my cream I will give this another try! Can’t wait to post again with a great results!! :)

  • http://www.italianchef.com/blog/2009/06/14/stracciatella-gelato/ Natalie

    Tried this again, but this time verified I had cream that wasn’t rancid :) Turned out wonderful!!! My only change to the recipe was that I used vanilla extract instead of the actual bean. I used my last bean in the last failed attempt so I did 1 1/2 tsp of extract instead. This is a definite keeper!!

  • Bea

    Oh, I feel so blessed that I live in Germany where we have so many Italian ice-cream Parlours. Stracciatella is my absolute fav ice-cream and very popular here. I discussed ice-cream with some American friends and it seems to be a pretty uncommon recipe and taste in the States. Love the recipe and will try it out.
    Forca Italia and Forca Italian ice-cream!!

  • Joe

    Hello, just wanted to tell you, I liked this post. It was helpful. Keep on posting! Joe aka tuskaley.

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