Dreamy-Deliciousness

Did you love Magic Shell as much as I did growing up? Or, maybe more accurately, you love it still today. It's chocolate. That makes a hard outer shell over ice cream. Could there be a better pairing?

I say no. No, there cannot.

Making your own Magic Shell is easy. It is also probably copyrighted, so we shall from this point forward call the hard chocolate shell on ice cream "Dreamy-Deliciousness Shell." And yes, I do know that there is a very good reason I haven't been hired for that job in product development/naming. Don Draper I am not.

Anywhoo.

I once told you peeps that I was going to do a post about coconut oil for my Granola Mom series. I haven't forgotten. I just tend to use it more for cooking than experimenting with it beyond that. I do have a couple of fun uses to share, promise.

I like this coconut oil. You can get it from Amazon.

 Well, it turns out that because coconut oil is a saturated oil, it creates the "magic" for the shell-that-shall-not-be-named. Seriously, making your own "Dreamy-Deliciousness Shell" is incredibly easy. Like two ingredient, 45 seconds easy.

As per my usual, measuring is optional.

Dreamy-Deliciousness Shell

2 parts dark chocolate (I'm a fan of Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips)
1 part coconut oil

Melt chocolate in the microwave on a mid-power setting. Depending on the amount of chocolate, somewhere between 30 seconds to a minute should suffice. Add coconut oil. Stir. Drizzle over ice cream*, let harden for a few second, devour.

 * Bonus points if you make the ice cream yourself. Here's my fool-proof and really easy vanilla ice cream recipe. (And yes, I do realize that sometimes exact proportions are necessary, so they have been provided for you.)

1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 1/8 cups granulated sugar
3 cups heavy cream
1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla extract**

In stand mixer combine milk and sugar on low speed. Mix until sugar is dissolved, about two minutes. Stir in the heavy cream and vanilla. Turn on ice cream maker and pour mixture into frozen freezer bowl. Let maker run for twenty minutes or so until the ice cream has the consistency of soft serve. Either eat or transfer into an airtight container and freeze until firmer.

Drizzle with Dreamy- Deliciousness Shell. Eat.

So easy and not even a little bit healthy. Ice cream is not often in our house because I will eat it every. single. day. I have found, though, that in making my own I eat smaller portions. Maybe because it is real to me how much bad-for-me-but-oh-so-good ness I'm consuming.

Whenever I mention coconut oil to my mom, a registered dietitian, she starts to pontificate about saturated fat. I generally stop her before she gets started and tell her that coconut got a bad rap and isn't as bad as she thinks it is. I don't actually have much to back that up as far as science is concerned, but there are a ton of granola-y blogs that say it is the bees knees.  Despite being bees knees-y, I don't recommend eating this ice cream with dark chocolate and coconut oil combo every day. Your life span will most likely be drastically shortened.

** We have found we like vanilla from Mexico. Especially if ordered by a well-meaning husband who had no idea that two liters of vanilla will last us our entire lives. And possibly all of Little Man's as well.

On an unrelated note, if you ever need to borrow vanilla, I'm your gal.

What are you making that sounds more difficult and fancier than it really is?