There! If that title doesn’t get me some major search engine hits, nothing will.
In his book Chocolate, Mort Rosenblum reserves his harshest critique for Godiva chocolates. He says he would rather eat Hershey’s. I have no opinion on the matter myself, since I don’t think I’ve ever tasted Godiva chocolates.
However, I don’t want to hear one harsh word toward Godiva ice cream, which is absolutely my favorite ice cream ever. Sure, I enjoy the freshly churned ice creams in exotic flavors, made by a pastry chef and served in quenelles, but you can’t take those home without cryogenic pants pockets, and I think ice cream is best eaten on the couch in front of the latest episode of Veronica Mars. Hmm, where can I get cryogenic pants?
Godiva ice cream (I always buy the Belgian Dark Chocolate flavor) is smooth. It is rich. It is chocolaty. It’s pretty much everything you hope for in chocolate ice cream and rarely get–although I admit I have a soft spot for Chocolate Mousse Royale at Baskin-Robbins. It makes brilliant milkshakes, malts, and sodas.
Now Godiva has introduced ice cream bars. One of the flavors contains white chocolate, so I ignored it, but the other is their Belgian Dark Chocolate ice cream with a milk chocolate coating. I just ate one. Frankly, I like a scoop from the carton better, but chocoholics are going to have a hard time walking past these bars in the freezer case. (The best ice cream bar I’ve ever had, incidentally, is from Roger’s in Victoria BC.)
I’ve noticed that few places make an ice cream soda the way I prefer them, and it’s one of my favorite summer treats–chocolaty enough for the true addict, but light enough that you can go out and continue surfing afterwards. (I don’t surf, but I plan to make it my midlife crisis project.) So even though it’s February and was 35 degrees out this morning, I’ll tell you how I make them. If you live in a sunny place like Hawaii or Palm Springs, consider an ice cream soda this afternoon. I was pretending to live in Palm Springs while eating my ice cream bar. I’ve never been to Palm Springs, but in my imagination it was very relaxing, especially since I imagined a piña colada in the other hand.
Put a few scoops of chocolate ice cream into a large bowl (if you have a stick blender) or a blender jar. Add a small amount of club soda and blend until the ice cream and soda are fully combined. Pour in additional club soda, approximately equal to the original volume of ice cream, and stir with a spoon until just combined. Pour into tall glasses and serve with a straw.
One last note about club soda. I had a total club soda epiphany last summer. Aside from ice cream sodas, we also like making Italian sodas and sparkling limeade, so we often buy club soda (or seltzer–can anyone taste the difference?) in the summer. I had been buying it in two formats: 2-liter bottles, which cost a dollar but go flat long before they’re empty, or single-serving glass bottles, which are about $5 for a six-pack.
It didn’t occur to me that there might be an inexpensive container smaller than a two-liter bottle. Turns out there is. It’s called a can. Now I buy 12-packs of club soda in cans for $2–just not when it’s so cold out I feel like I’m wearing cryogenic pants.
You’re right about the title. It hit my Google searchbar news immediately!
p.s. I’ll try the white chocolate bar for you.
Huh, our supermarkets have 1-liter bottles of seltzer for $0.79 apiece.
I think we have those, too, but the cans come out even cheaper, I think, and they’re more convenient for a single serving.
While we’re on the subject of ice cream… A friend is looking for an ice cream stand in Seattle. The sort of place where you get a cone with a big scoop. Where they make their own ice cream in chocolate and vanilla for the people looking for comfort, and in interesting flavors for people looking for adventure. So gelato doesn’t count, since you get it in a little tiny cup with little tiny spoons. The chains that get buckets of ice cream shipped from the factory in Wisconson don’t count of course. Any ideas?
Thanks to a handy Christmas present from my sister-in-law, I made the switch to a soda siphon last year. The little charger canisters are about $6 for a box of 10 (one charger fizzes a liter of water), and if you keep the siphon in the refrigerator, the soda doesn’t lose its mojo for a long, long time. The quality of the fizz is somewhat different than the bottled stuff–basically, you wind up with a much more impressive presentation, but the bubbles are shorter-lived. Cost-wise, it’s about the same as buying the liter bottles–assuming you can convince someone to give you the $50 siphon as a gift–but the chargers take up much less space in the cabinet (and you don’t have to lug a bunch of heavy bottles home from the store), which makes the siphon convenient for impromptu Italian soda sessions, not to mention the occasional vaudeville soda-in-the-face routine.
Paul, when you say “impressive presentation,” do you mean a big fizzy head? I’m all for that. Although we already have a whipped cream canister, so I’m not sure we can support a second aerating device.
Big fizzy head, roaring geyser as you spray it into the glass, loud whooshing sound that scares the cats, the whole bit. And don’t forget the slapstick potential–a big, BIG plus.