This is a very fast and simple recipe for ice-cream, which I invented when I misread an old Mary Berry recipe – I accidentally missed out the egg yolks, but the end result still tasted good. The reason why it’s so easy is that it doesn’t involve making a custard, as most ice-creams do. The secret to making good ice-cream is basically a matter of getting a decent emulsion of fat and water. I think that this recipe achieves that partly by having a higher fat content than other ice-cream recipes I’ve come across – so beware, large quantities will cause your waistline to expand!

This recipe also has the advantage that it’s safer than other "no-cook" ice-cream recipes I’ve come across, because there are no raw eggs in the recipe (dried egg white is pasteurised), so it can be safely served to children, pregnant women, the elderly and immuno-suppressed, who must avoid raw eggs.

However, like properly made ice-creams it is rich with no detectable ice crystals in mouth feel. The trick is speed – you really can’t afford to pause or loose focus when mixing the ingredients together, or the ingredients will separate, and the egg whites lose their aeration.

It’s also important to have your ingredients at the right temperature. Bring the cream almost up to room temperature by taking it out of the fridge about an hour before starting to make this recipe, or the contrast in temperatures between that and the chocolate can cause the chocolate to re-solidify in lots of little flakes in your recipe (If the container holding the cream still feels cool to the touch, then it’s too soon to start making the ice-cream).

It is possible to make this recipe without an ice-cream maker, but it is a lot more work – you will need to take the carton of ice-cream out of the freezer every ten minutes and give it a vigorous stir with a fork, over a period of about an hour or two, until it is completely set through.

I have used dark chocolate, but the finished product has a milk chocolate flavour, because of all the cream in the recipe. You can use milk chocolate, but I feel that the chocolate flavour then tends to be overly subtle in the finished product.

INGREDIENTS

160g (5.5oz) Dark Chocolate

2 dried egg whites, reconstituted according to packet instructions

175g (6oz) caster sugar

500ml (17 fl oz) single cream (18% fat cream)

250ml (8.5 fl oz) double cream (48% fat cream)

METHOD

Take the double & single cream out of the fridge to warm up. Make sure your ice-cream maker is ready to use, and have all your equipment handy (you don’t want to have to break off in the middle of making this to rummage in a drawer)

Melt chocolate by the usual method in a pyrex bowl over simmering water, or in a double boiler. When it has melted, add the double cream to the chocolate in the warm bowl, and stir well. Then add the single cream, continuously gently stirring the mixture until it is perfectly even.

Then whisk the egg whites until stiff (and about double the volume) using an electric beater. This will take about 2 minutes. Then add the sugar, little by little, continuing to whisk while doing so.

Then whisk in the chocolate and cream mixture, again, a little at a time, whisking continuously. Put the mixture straight into the ice-cream maker, and follow the manufacturer’s instructions to freeze the ice-cream.

Once frozen, if you are not eating the ice-cream straight away, then put immediately into a container, and put it in the freezer. The recipe makes about 1.5 litres of ice-cream. The ice-cream will tend to become more solid in the freezer as time goes on, so if it remains in the freezer for more than 4 hours, you will need to remove the container from the freezer and put the container in the fridge for about 20 minutes to let it soften very slightly before serving.

You can make this recipe with any type of chocolate that takes your fancy, but you may want to reduce the sugar content down to about 140g for milk chocolate or 120g for white chocolate to avoid the sweetness overwhelming the flavour of the chocolate. Of course, you can also add other ingredients such as small pieces of fruit, flavourings like mint or citrus oils, spices, caramel sauce, or confectionery pieces to ring the changes. However, if you are adding large quantities of fruit, you will need to use a higher fat cream to avoid getting lots of large ice crystals – I suggest that in this case you use entirely double cream, rather than a mixture of single and double cream. However, be careful with double cream and ice-cream makers – on occasions when my attention slipped, the cream whipped itself into butter, which had a most peculiar texture when eaten!

For an 80g serving (about 2 scoops), fat content is 21g; calorie content 270kcal.