#4 Cinnamon Chocolate Kiss

Last year I had the privilege to assist Kip over at Bierkast with the brewing of a pumpkin beer. The beer was called Kurbis Stout and it was delicious! You can read more about it here: HYPERLINKBLOGTRANSPORT. Kurbis is the German word for Pumpkin in case you were wondering why a pumpkin beer would be called something that has no meaning in the English language. Kip brews many unique and tasty beers and keeps tabs on the industry over at Bierkast. I definitely recommend following his blog if you're interested in home brewing and/or beer!

Anyway, late last year Kip requested that I make a special batch of Cookies n' Cream Ice Cream that he could take to an office party. His coworkers enjoyed the ice cream so much that he asked me to make another ice cream for them! (So, yes, I will take special requests...)

We agreed upon a chocolate ice cream with a twist to the flavor and so the end result became chocolate cinnamon. As I was pondering over the recipe I remembered I had a number of Hershey's milk chocolate kisses left over from the holiday season. Perfect. They would provide the chocolate flavor, but I didn't have enough, so I had to go buy extra kisses (CHOCOLATES) from the grocery store, which worked out fine because I also needed to pick up some milk and cream. I've been saving my receipts, so I'm going to start keeping track of the total cost of this 52 week ice cream project!

When I got home I began peeling the aluminum wrappers off the kisses. This activity was semi-relaxing but I wouldn't want to make a habit out of it. I probably unwrapped about seventy-five or so.

40 kisses (about 2 cups) were melted on low heat and added to the basic ice cream ingredients. Then I whipped it all up with the immersion blender's whipping attachment, added 1 teaspoon of cinnamon extract and 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon, then 3 cups of cream, chilled it, churned it, and voila: Cinnamon Chocolate Kiss Ice Cream!

Kip and I later chatted about the reaction he and his colleagues had about the ice cream. Here are some candid quotes from the discussion about what everyone had to say:

"Everyone had it and said "Wow!" on their first bite and they all ate it fast."

"It was very cinnamony."

"Intense."

"The cinnamon was lost in the Hershey [milk chocolate] flavor."

"It may have been too sweet for some people, but then again it was like soft serve and was amazing."

"Did people get second helpings?"
"No, because there wasn't any left; they put stuff down they don't want to eat."

Overall, it sounds like a very positive reaction. Woohoo!

I just grabbed the half-pint I saved and I'm tasting it now. The milk chocolate is very strong, followed by a cinnamon after taste. It is reminiscent of Mexican hot chocolate in a sense - at least that flavor was very apparent when the mixture was being prepared... I was tempted to pour myself a steaming mug full at the time. :-)

This ice cream IS very sweet because of the sugar from the Hershey's Kisses AND the 1 cup of sugar in the recipe. Next time I would reduce the amount of sugar that goes in, perhaps to half a cup, or even use dark chocolate which is not as sweet. Nonetheless, if you have an extreme sweet tooth like me then you probably wouldn't mind the extra sugar! Oops... I just finished the rest of it.

Until next time!