Nutella Ice Cream

One of my favorite things about making ice cream is taking requests.  There are several requested ice cream flavors in the blog queue, including today's flavor.  A friend from work requested that I make a chocolate hazelnut ice cream that taste like Nutella. I got on it right away.

I made this ice cream twice.  The first time I made the ice cream using a recipe similar to chocolate peanut butter, substituting homemade hazelnut butter instead.  The hazelnut butter was made in my food processor because I could not find hazelnut butter in the store.  My butter turned out much more grainy than a commercially processed nut butter, and thus resulted in a grainy ice cream.  It tasted good, but not great.  I gave a pint to my friend, warning him that I was not 100% satisfied with the results.  He thought the ice cream tasted good, but he agreed that the texture was not quite right.

Back to the drawing board.  Since my friend had requested a flavor similar to Nutella I decided to keep it simple and use Nutella in the recipe.  Why invent something that already exists?  I decided to make a recipe similar to peanut butter ice cream given that Nutella is a creamy, fatty spread.  The results were much better the second time.  Nutella ice cream is light in texture, smooth, tastes just like the real thing, and is simple to make.  Success!  I have yet to give my friend the second pint but I'm sure he will be delighted.  Enjoy!

Nutella Ice Cream

3/4 cup (235 g) Nutella
1/2 cup (100 g) sugar
1 1/3 cups (330 ml) whole milk
1 1/3 cups (330 ml) heavy cream
Pinch of salt

Place all of the ingredients in a blender or food process and process until smooth.  Chill mixture in refrigerator for 1-2 hours. Once ice cream base is thoroughly chilled, pour base into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions.  Pack the ice cream into a plastic container.  Freeze until firm, at least 4 hours.