Very Chocolate Ice Cream

We just got an ice cream maker last week!!! It's a Cuisinart 2-quart capacity countertop variety, which is the largest size I could find that didn't require ice and rock salt for making the ice cream. 
So far I've made the vanilla recipe from their included booklet, as well as the vanilla yogurt.  The ice cream was wonderful, the yogurt tasty but not nearly as good as the ice cream (go figure, must be the 17 less grams of fat per serving).  For having guests this weekend, I decided to make some chocolate ice cream as well.

This recipe caught my eye off of Allrecipes and with all the positive reviews, I knew I had to make it. 

In all seriousness, it is one of the best things I have ever eaten.  I'm not even kidding.   Even Grant agrees, and he's pretty picky about homemade ice cream, texturewise.  It's the perfect amount of chocolaty goodness, creamy and smooth melt-in-your mouth delectableness.  Everyone loved it.

Note:  This amount filled up my 2-quart ice cream maker to full capacity.  If you have a smaller machine, please decrease the ingredients!  The link below to Allrecipes takes you to the recipe itself, and they have an awesome feature on their site that calculates different amount of servings for you. The original recipe was for 8 servings - I changed it to 12 for our machine, which was perfect. 

Recipe (from Allrecipes)

• 1 cup and 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1-1/2 cups milk
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 5 egg yolks, lightly beaten
• 3 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped finely (I used Bakers Semi-sweet Chocolate)
• 3 cups heavy cream
• 1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 
  Combine sugar, milk, salt, and cocoa powder in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly. Heat to about 150°, very hot but not bubbling yet.  Place the egg yolks into a small bowl. Gradually stir in about 1/2 cup of the hot liquid. and return to the saucepan. Heat until thickened (175-180°), but do not boil. Remove from the heat, and stir in the chopped chocolate until chocolate is melted. Pour into a chilled bowl, and refrigerate for about two hours until cold, stirring occasionally.
  
• When chocolate mixture has completely cooled, stir in the cream, and vanilla. Pour into an ice cream maker, and freeze according to manufacturer's directions.