The Trick To Adding Chocolate Chips That Don't Turn Rock-Hard In Ice Cream

Whether you keep it plain or eat it with toppings, ice cream dependably delights. Yet, nailing a perfect consistency requires expertise — not only for the chilled dairy, but the chocolate chip topping, too. If you simply mix the sweet cocoa bites into the frozen treat, the texture turns unappetizingly hard.

So for savvy solutions, Food Republic's fortunate for the advice of Edmund McCormick, the Founder & CEO of Cape Crystal Brands — a company selling stabilizers, thickeners, and other culinary products. He notes the issue all comes down to the commercial chocolate chips you're buying from the store. These are designed primarily for baking applications, meaning they contain "less cocoa butter, and more stabilizers," which causes unwanted rigidity.

In a batch of homemade cookies (perhaps prepared using a chocolate chip skillet recipe), their industrial composition avoids excessive melting. Yet mixed into an ice cream, you get dry, unpalatable bites that overly disrupt the velvety mouthfeel. So to remedy, McCormick notes the simplest move is to "melt chocolate with 1–2 teaspoons of coconut oil per cup," then once re-chilled, you can reintegrate the chips into frozen treats without fear. If you don't have this fatty ingredient on hand, cocoa butter and sugar can aid in modifying the makeup, too. Thankfully, options for ideally-textured chocolate are numerous, you'll just need to ensure adjustments.

If you're committed to chocolate chip ice cream, you'll need to up their fat content or even make the sweet from scratch to ensure ice cream compatibility. However, if you're open to additional chocolate textures and flavors, other options beckon.

For starters, McCormick points out that simply using "candy-coated chocolates, such as miniature M&Ms," ensures success, no modifications required. The encased sugar keeps their texture nice and soft — a technique commonly found in Ben & Jerry's flavors. Alternatively, he also recommends to seek out specifically couverture chocolate, a variety known for its quantity of cocoa butter. Silkier and shinier, the variety won't only ease ice cream integration, but also impart a richer flavor, thereby creating an all-around more decadent dessert.

Another viable route is to change the shape and size of the folded-in sweet. McCormick suggests to simply "shave a chocolate bar into pieces," to achieve a straightforward fix. Not only will these smaller morsels offer enough crunch, but "blocks of chocolate typically have more cocoa butter," he notes — no specialized shopping required. And if you're after a particularly refined melding technique, consider pouring a stream of heated chocolate into the ice cream. You'll create a sea of tiny, richly-flavored chocolate flakes, all sprinkled throughout the creamy dessert. So whether you're making a vegan avocado mint chocolate chip ice cream or a classic vanilla combo, keep such techniques in mind for pairing success.