Saigon Mexican Chocolate

A while back*, my friend Claudia and I made some Mexican Chocolate Ice Cream out of Bruce Weinstein's The Ultimate Ice Cream Book. Instead of regular cinnamon, we used Saigon Cinnamon in its place. I thought the ice cream would have a bit of a "spicy hot" taste, but really, the ice cream just tastes like rich chocolate, not even cinnamony chocolate. It was very smooth and decadent either way. However, I wonder if I should use more cinnamon the next time I make it. That might be a good idea since I talked my husband into getting a big Costco sized bottle when we were there a while back -- gotta use it sometime!

What was fun about this project was that since there wouldn't be enough time to make the base and then chill it with Claudia, I made the base in advance so we could chill it together, and when she came, we made another base which she took home with her. It was just like a lesson on a real cooking show! Claudia and I also prepared (for her to freeze at home) my very own Lisa's White Chocolate Cranberry Cookie Ice Cream, which I will blog about and include a recipe in a future post!

*A while back was January 23. As this was almost a month ago, I'd like to note that this ice cream seems to be keeping very well -- it tastes and looks like it was made yesterday!