Olive Oil Stracciatella Ice Cream
A twist on a classic Italian stracciatella ice cream. Creamy olive oil ice cream made with extra virgin olive oil and flecked with semi-sweet chocolate bits!
It has been over six months since I last shared an ice cream recipe and it’s about time that we do something about that. Don’t you think? After all, it’s August. One the of year’s prime ice cream eating months.
To be fair, I actually had plans to share an equally as fun ice cream recipe with you months ago, but thanks to a few epic and frustrating fails, that didn’t end up happening. Before long, I was wrapping my ice cream maker (I use this one and really like it!) in bubble wrap and packing it up for our move.
So, as I was organizing our new kitchen, I immediately searched out the ice cream maker and popped it into our freezer. It has a permanent home there at the moment.
There’s nothing worse than having an urge (or burst of creative energy!) to make ice cream and realizing that your ice cream bowl has not sufficiently chilled and you will have to wait over 24 hours–at minimum–to accomplish that goal. Really, that is the worst.
You want ice cream = the bowl is never chilled. You don’t particularly feel like ice cream = your bowl has been occupying your freezer for months. Isn’t that a law or something?
Anyway, this ice cream will continue to be a regular in my ice cream rotation, because it is that good! You might be thinking: “I’m not sure if I want my ice cream to taste like olive oil though.”
Ok, hear me out. It is really, really good. Have you ever made an olive oil cake, or better yet, a chocolate olive oil baked good? They always have a subtle sweet, yet grassy flavor that makes you want to come back for more.
Let me preface this by saying that this ice cream is not overwhelmingly strong at all. Think of it as an elevated vanilla ice cream (without the vanilla). It is a blank canvas that can be tweaked and tankered with in so many ways.
Plus, olive oil has so many great health benefits, which definitely gives you an excuse to have an extra scoop…or two!
The base olive oil ice cream was barely adapted from David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop, and I decided to twist it into an Italian stracciatella with the addition of melted semisweet chocolate. The chocolate and olive oil pair extremely well together and just makes the ice cream a bit more exciting.
If you make this, be sure to use a high-quality olive oil! Don’t skimp, otherwise the olive oil flavor will be lost [I included my recommendation in the recipe below].
The Italian word, stracciatella, means “little shreds” and describes the chocolate incorporated into the ice cream. You achieve this by slowly drizzling melted chocolate into the ice cream just before it is finished churning. As the melted, slightly warm chocolate hits the frozen ice cream, it immediately sets and hardens into small little flakes. It sounds complicated, but it is easy and straight-forward.
The recipe instructions walk you through it every step of the way! No fear.
This method is the best way of incorporating chocolate into any ice cream–as it lends itself to the best texture. The dark chocolate is distributed evenly into the entire batch of ice cream, and since it is finely shredded, it melts into every bite or lick–if you’re serving this on waffle cones–which is highly recommended.
You know, without having to bite down on one, random large chunk of frozen chocolate, which is not nearly as enjoyable! Hope you love this ice cream as much as I do!
Olive Oil Stracciatella Ice Cream
Ingredients:
- 1 and 1/3 cup whole milk
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
- pinch of sea salt
- 1 cup heavy cream, chilled
- 6 large egg yolks
- 1/2 cup high-quality extra virgin olive oil (I used this one!)
- 2 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, broken into small pieces
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
Directions:
- Combine the whole milk, granulated sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan. In a large separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Set aside.
- Place the milk mixture over medium-low heat and heat until just barely beginning to simmer. Remove from the heat and slowly temper the milk mixture into the egg yolks, whisking continuously as you pour. Place ice cream base back in the saucepan, and heat over medium-low heat, stirring continously, until the mixture coats the back of a wooden spoon.
- Place the heavy cream in a large, clean bowl or container (that can easily be set over an ice bath for cooling). Once the ice cream base is thick, pour it through a fine-meshed sieve over the cream. Whisk mixture together. Slowly whisk the olive oil into the ice cream base–pouring the oil in a thin stream with your other hand as you whisk. Place mixture over an ice bath, stirring every 10 minutes or so, until the base has cooled. Place ice cream base in an airtight container and set in the refrigerator until it has completely chilled.
- Churn ice cream in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. As the ice cream is churning, prepare the chocolate. Combine the chopped chocolate and butter in a small microwave-safe bowl. Microwave at 15 second increments, stirring between each increment, until the chocolate and butter have melted and are smooth [be careful not to over-heat, as it will cause the chocolate to get grainy]. Scrape the melted chocolate into a small Ziploc bag. You want the chocolate to stay warm (if necessary, place closed bag in a bowl of warm water as the ice cream finishes churning).
- In the last few minutes of churning, snip a very small hole from of the bottom corners of the Ziploc bag and slowly drizzle the chocolate in a thin stream into the ice cream as it is churning. Usually, I’ll reserve a tiny bit of chocolate for drizzling over the top of the ice cream before I freeze it.
- Place the ice cream in an airtight container, cover the surface of the ice cream lightly with parchment paper or plastic wrap (I use this type of container, which works great!). Freeze the ice cream for a minimum of 4 to 6 hours, or until firm enough to scoop. Serve straight out of the container, or alternatively, you can drizzle the ice cream with a tiny bit of olive oil and sprinkle of sea salt!
Olive oil ice cream recipe from David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop.
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What a gorgeous color! This sounds amazing. I love olive oil cake and have been wanting to try it in ice cream. Pinning 🙂
Thanks so much Becky!!! Next, I’ll have to make an olive oil ice cream CAKE!!!! <---omg, that totally needs to happen asap.
I do luv olive oil ice cream! What an educational and interesting method for incorporating the chocolate and achieving those shards – I had wondered how that was done and thought it was maybe just grated in that way. Looking forward to trying the method with the chocolate and making stracciatella – thanks for sharing! 😉
Thanks Cristina! Yep–if you ever want to incorporate thin shards of chocolate, this the best method! 🙂 Grated chocolate would probably work as well (if you folded it into the churned ice cream), but I have a feeling it would be more likely to melt into the ice cream, and this is a lot easier.
Yep, you’re so right. There’s nothing worse than getting the urge to make a giant batch of ice cream, yet you know you’re at least 48 hours away from it…..I adore the flavor of olive oil in sweets, but have yet to try it in an ice cream. Love!!!
IT’S THE WORST MOMENT. Thanks Nicole! 🙂
Oh yum!! I know olive oil is kind of a weird ingredient in sweets, but I really love it!! Olive oil cake is my favorite! I have got to try this!
Mine too! I love olive oil cake. Thanks Annie! Let me know if you try it.
YAY! Gosh, I just love ice cream, but can you believe i have never had stracciatella?!? Must try this soon and personally, I love the olive oil!
Yes! It’s the best way of incorporating chocolate into ice cream in this way! 🙂
Ice cream and me are best friends and I could eat this allday everyday!
Ha! I love that! We’re best friends too 😉
I love olive oil, and I love ice cream…. so pretty sure I’d LOVE LOVE this recipe! Looks so yum!
I know, right? I feel like if you love olive oil and love ice cream, there is no chance you won’t love this ice cream 🙂 Thanks Steph! Hope you had a great break from the blog and are feeling refreshed!
stracciatella is my favourite ice cream flavour. absolute favourite. and i’ve always been curious about olive oil on ice cream, i think i saw it in a bon apetit magazine a year or two ago but have never tried it. combining the two seems like a perfect idea and that’s smart to keep your ice cream maker in the freezer at all times! i feel that way about softening butter…have to have some prepped at all times.
Me too! I love anything stracciatella. Mint is usually my go-to, but this olive oil is quickly rising in the ranks! And yes, leaving my ice cream maker in the freezer has bene life-changing, haha!
Oh olive oil ice cream, that would be a first for me. I bet it’s so rich and tasty dough, especially for those olive oil addicts like myself. Lovely photography as well.
Yes! Ironically, it doesn’t taste that much more rich than regular ice cream (it does melt bit nicer, though!), but it has such a great, unique flavor. Thanks Oana!
Oh wow, this recipe sounds amazing! Your photos are gorgeous today as well… can’t wait to try it!
Thank you so much MB! Means a lot.
I have had olive oil ice cream and it is AMAZING. The chocolate chunks in this are just an added bonus.
Isn’t it so good?! I want to make another batch already!
Oh wow. This has August written all over it! This looks delicious and perfect for the height of summer. Beautiful photos!
Thank you Jenn!
I want to say Stracciatella over and over again – it’s so sassy of word!! And I HATE when my ice cream bowl isn’t frozen enough when I want to make ice cream, especially when I’m in a rush. That’s alwyas the way the Universe works. But this looks incredible!!
Haha! So true. It’s the WORST. I’m so happy I’ve been keeping my bowl in there lately (although ironically, I happened to drop an entire thing of ice cream base all over my kitchen floor last night).
I have never had olive oil ice cream before. It sounds delicious! It’s terrible when you have a taste fore something but realize you don’t have the materials ready.
Olive oil ice cream is the BOMB!! I 100% endorse 🙂 The funny thing is that the other day when I saw your Instagram post, my wife was in the process of making a stracciatella ice cream as well – admittedly NOT with olive oil (now I’m jealous). I should have guessed!
I still remember your olive oil ice cream from last year!!! Gorgeous.
I’ve never had Olive Oil ice cream before. This qualifies as a healthy dessert, right? 😀
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