This summer in Paris has been hot hot hot. And just when I hoped things were about to cool down, we even had a couple of 30° days in September.
There was only one thing for it, and that was a recipe to chill me out.
I had another conundrum to crack too. A confession: I eat chocolate every single day. One of the most alarming things about the heatwave was that it was simultaneously ruining my chocolate stash and putting me off an evening chocolate nibble.
I am a big fan of the Smitten Kitchen blog and I know New York has similarly stifling city summers so I had a browse of things Deb has been cooking up in the same circumstances. I came across what she calls fudge popsicles, but, being British, I would call chocolate ice lollies. Surely this was killing two birds with one stone.
I tried it out, and the resulting ice lollies were, as promised, fudgy and yet lolly-like. Like chocolate ice cream that’s not too heavy or creamy for oppressively hot weather and also not watery. Magic.
The only changes I made were to adapt to ingredients we can get on this side of the pond, oh, and double the quantities for more standard-issue ice lolly moulds.
If you’d like to read the Smitten Kitchen post, here’s the link:
The only specialist equipment you need is an ice lolly mould and lolly sticks. I found mine online (and, as you can see, there are little plastic bases to hold the stick in place). If you’re feeling adventurous and don’t want to invest in a mould, you can use small paper cups or little yogurt pots.
Fudgy, full-flavoured chocolate ice lollies
AKA how to get your chocolate fix when it’s too hot to eat chocolate
Ingredients
- 40g dark chocolate
- 2/3 cup caster sugar
- 2 tbsp cornflour
- 3 tbsp cocoa powder
- 600ml whole milk
- pinch salt
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp butter
Method
First, melt the chocolate in a medium-sized saucepan over a very low heat.
Add the sugar, cornflour, cocoa powder, milk and salt and increase the heat, stirring continuously until it thickens. Take the saucepan off the heat.
Finally, add the butter and vanilla extract, stir into the mixture and leave to cool before pouring into your moulds. Pop the lolly sticks in and place in the freezer for 2 hours or more.
To unmould the lollies, either take the mould out of the freezer a few minutes early or run the mould under warm water. Enjoy!