Fudge Ripple Ice Cream

We only have two more weeks with our Lore, which breaks everyone's hearts. I've been glum for days, moping in the laundry room and looking at the world through slitted eyes. Even the kittycat doesn't want to be in the same room as me.

I decided that we'd better let Lore choose the ice cream this week, so we can enjoy it before our beautiful butterfly flaps her wings home.

We tossed around some really good ideas: blueberry, cherry-vanilla, Oreo, lemon. But when I mentioned Fudge Ripple, those sea green eyes lit up like Christmas.

I both envy and fear for the man who wins Lorelei's heart. I envy him because the lucky devil gets to watch those eyes come alive, and it's one of the most glorious sights on Earth. I also fear for the poor dude, because once he figures out how to do it, he's going to spend the rest of his days trying to make it happen again and again. That sucker isn't gonna have time for anything else. It's that rewarding.

I made a simple vanilla ice cream base:
1 cup milk
2 cups whipping cream
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
pinch of salt

Whisk all ingredients together and toss in your ice cream machine.

Now after you pour this into the ice cream maker and freeze it, you could just swirl in some jarred hot fudge sauce, re-freeze and call it done. But this ice cream was for our Lore, and hot fudge sauce is wicked easy to make anyways, so this wasn't a day for scrimping.

Homemade Hot Fudge Sauce

8 ounces of the best bittersweet chocolate you can find (I used Lindt)
1 cup whipping cream
1 tablespoon strong coffee
1 teaspoon vanilla

Chop the chocolate into small bits. Heat chocolate and cream in a small saucepan over low heat until smooth and silky. Remove from heat; stir in coffee and vanilla.

**You can omit the coffee, but it really does improve the taste of the sauce for some reason.

I chilled the sauce a little and then stirred it into the softened ice cream, which I'd gotten a little too soft, so I didn't get those starkly contrasting ripples I wanted. But to Hell with aesthetics. It was scrumptious.