chocolate ice cream

* 2 cups heavy cream

* 3 cups Half & Half
* 4 egg yolks. The eggs I used were gigantic. These were whisked in while the mixture was still cold.
* 1 cup of milk (2% was all I had, otherwise I would have used whole milk)
* 2 medium-size vanilla beans scraped out
* 3/4 cup cane sugar
* 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
* 3 chunks of couverture chocolate approximately 2 oz each. I did not weigh them, chunks were broken off a much larger chunk and melted into the mixture until it turned the desired color.
* 1/2 teaspoon orange oil (marketed for candy making)

Mixture is heated to create a thin custard, then chilled to near freezing to lessen the work of the ice cream maker. The ice cream maker I use is little more than a toy purchased through eBay.

The vanilla beans are also purchased at a discount through eBay.

The custard mixture increases in volume and incorporates air as the machine turns, and this churning helps it avoid the formation of large ice crystals as it freezes, At this early point straight from the machine it is still soft ice cream and must be further frozen hard.