Never on Sunday Chocolate Ice Cream

Never on Sunday chocolate ice cream earns its name with a triple-chocolate hit: cocoa, chopped semi-sweet chocolate, and a whiskey finish that keeps the ice cream scoopable straight from the freezer. The base is a proper egg custard, the kind that takes patience over medium-low heat until it coats the back of a spoon.

The whiskey isn’t just a flavor note. Alcohol lowers the freezing point of the custard, which is why this scoops cleanly without softening on the counter. Tempering the eggs with a half cup of the warm chocolate cream before returning everything to the pan is what keeps the custard silky instead of scrambled. Straining the mixture catches any stray bits of cooked egg before churning.

Pro Tips

• Cool the custard completely before adding whiskey. Hot booze flashes off and you lose the freezer-soft benefit.
• Stir often while cooling to keep a skin from forming on the surface.
• Let the churned ice cream rest in the freezer for at least 4 hours to mellow. The cocoa flavor blooms with that rest.
• If it freezes rock-hard, move it to the fridge for 15 minutes before scooping.

Variations

• Swap whiskey for bourbon or dark rum for a different warm note.
• Stir in chopped toasted pecans or chocolate-covered espresso beans during the last minute of churning.
• Use Dutch-process cocoa for a deeper, smoother chocolate finish.