Making It Up To Myself - Mocha-Bailey's Gelato

I think the events in my life coincide to constructively and destructively interfere. This happens in both positive and negative directions, resulting in an irregular cosine of emotions. Recently, a string of unfortunate events (hopefully) terminated with my roommate finishing the batch of coffee ice cream that I had recently made, leaving me disappointed, cranky, and generally feeling like a child who just had their favorite sweet taken away.

Luckily, this bout of emotional immaturity brought me to this quite mature recipe. After about 10 minutes of wallowing in misery (ice cream is important to me!!!), my best friend N. called on Skype, I complained to her, she was incredibly understanding as always, and I sucked it up and made a new batch. 

A semi-botched attempted at tempering chocolate resulted in a leftover blob of bloomy, but still delicious, dark chocolate stuck firmly to a bowl. At the last minute, I hung the sieve over this bowl and strained the coffee pudding into it, hoping it'd melt and combine. My instincts were spot-on, and this afternoon, I swirled about half a shot of Bailey's into it as it churned. As I write this, my roommate (yep, same one that finished the last batch) is poking furiously at the ice cream machine, trying to remove the last traces with a rubber spatula.

Ingredients

3 cups whole milk

~7 oz. sweetened condensed milk

1/4 cup cornstarch

2 tbsp whole milk (for the cornstarch)
3 packets (equivalent of 3 cups) instant coffee
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt (add all of it... just trust me)

~3 oz. dark chocolate
1/2 oz. Bailey's (optional)

Directions

1. Start boiling the milk and sweetened condensed milk on the stove, just until it starts to foam around the edges of the pot.

2. Whisk together the cornstarch and 2 tbsp milk; you might need to add a bit more to get all the cornstarch to dissolve, or you can just add water.

3. Add the instant coffee to the hot milk and whisk until mostly dissolved. Add the cornstarch and liquid mixture, then whisk. In a few minutes, the milk will noticeably thicken into a pudding mixture. Turn the fire off and add the vanilla and salt.

4. Place the chocolate in a bowl that's large enough to contain the pudding (at least 1 quart) and balance the sieve over it. Pour the pudding into the sieve to strain it, scraping the pot with a rubber spatula to make sure you get all the pudding. Now is a good time to add Bailey's, if you like.

5. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it cool, then refrigerate it overnight, until completely cool.

6. Churn in an ice cream maker or the freezer, stirring every 30 minutes, until desired consistency. Enjoy!

Postscript: Happy Chinese New Year, everyone! I think this ice cream holds its own against all the more traditional sweets for today :) Maaaaaa.