SHF: Ice, Ice, Baby

It's like this.

I love hazelnuts.

I think chocolate is pretty nice, too.

If you mix them together, I'm yours.

That simple.


But, as a married woman, I can not allow myself to be put in that position (I have a feeling Matt might object), so any choco-hazelnut mergers will have to be by my own hand.

The blogger I most often turn to for at the very least a good chuckle, if not an all-out belly-laugh, Sarah of The Delicious Life, is hosting this month's (and the 21st) Sugar High Friday.

Cold treats, for an unbearably hot (US) summer. I can support that.

Sure, there are plenty of options. Frozen desserts of all kinds!

Still, I found myself leaning in an ice cream-y direction. Before I tipped over, I decided to go with it.

Two of my favorite ingredients, hazelnuts and chocolate; I didn't want a shotgun marriage. No, these two had to get along...they had to want to be together.

I found a very simple recipe for Hazelnut Ice Cream; hazelnuts, cream, sugar, egg yolks, and vanilla.

Good start...but it needed a little 'something'.

How about a half-cup of cocoa powder? Yeah, that'd work.

Still...it needed more. More flavor. More 'wow'.

I had it. Perfect. Exactly what this ice cream needed.

A quarter cup of Torani Hazelnut Syrup!

The the syrup helped to balance things out, as the addition of cocoa had made the yolk/sugar mixture rather dry.

But this? Oh, my.

Cream. Sugar. Cocoa. Vanilla. Hazelnut syrup. And roasted, pulverized, hazelnuts.

In one ice cream.

It's very much like Gianduja, yet it's not.

It's deep, and multi-faceted. It's...decadent. It's rich. It's...chocolate and hazelnut in each and every bite.


close-up..see the hazelnuts in there?

Like Dr. No-era Sean Connery-as-Bond and My Favorite Wife-age Cary Grant meshed into one perfect, gorgeous, sexy, dear-god-I-must-have-you-now-man, loving husband be damned; it's just that good.

Just as an example, of course. Which in no way applies to me. No. I have no idea where that came from. Really.

Hang on, what's that? From Russia with Love is on? Followed by North by Northwest? Seriously?

Um...gotta go.




Tagged with: Food and Drink + Sugar High Friday + SHF#21 + Ice Cream + Chocolate + Hazelnuts + Torani + Events