Ice cream is one of my favorite desserts – it’s creamy, sweet, flavorful, and perfectly cold, especially on a hot day. My love for frozen dessert and my love for coffee combined this summer in the King Arthur Flour baking company’s Mocha Madness Ice Cream!

The recipe (which you can find here) was fairly straightforward, with few special ingredients and an easy procedure. First, I mixed together my milk, espresso powder, cocoa powder, and sugar, and then I stirred in the heavy cream and the vanilla. Next, I popped the mixture into my ice cream machine and churned for 30 minutes. Lastly, I added chocolate chips in the last 30 seconds of churning (mainly because I didn’t have any Oreos in the house). Then I froze my ice cream for a few hours before trying some.

The ice cream was smooth, rich, and had a strong coffee flavor – perfect for my taste. My only criticism is that the coffee was perhaps a bit too strong; however, this might be because I used instant coffee granules rather than normal espresso powder. I would recommend reducing the amount of espresso powder from 2 tablespoons to 1 ½ tablespoons if you decide to make this recipe and prefer a lighter coffee flavor.

Another feature to note is this recipe isn’t a custard-based ice cream. (Most ice cream is made using a cooked, chilled custard base that is then churned in an ice cream maker.) The upside of this is that the ice cream is fast and easy to make – you can eat it within the hour! The downside is that the taste is a little less creamy and smooth than a homemade custard-based ice cream. This doesn’t bother me, however, because the taste difference is minor, and it’s really convenient to make.

Lastly, my favorite part of this recipe is that King Arthur Flour includes a way to make the ice cream without an ice cream maker, enabling bakers who don’t own ice cream makers to churn the ice cream by hand. I love this aspect of the recipe, and it’s one of the reasons that I highly recommend King Arthur Flour’s Mocha Madness Ice Cream.