Chocolate Semifreddo Italy’s elegant alternative to gelato (and ice cream) is rich and decadently creamy—and requires no special equipment to make. j BY ANNIE PETITO k
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without feeling numbingly so. The only drawback was the fussy step of separating all those eggs, so I tried again with a combination of heavy cream, water, and three whole eggs instead of five yolks. The results were even better—the perfect balance of decadent and refreshing, thanks to the extra water in the egg whites—and the method was easier and less wasteful. But I was curious to learn why the dessert had seemed more or less cold, depending on how much fat was in it. After a conversation with our science editor, I understood: When you put a spoonful of frozen dessert on your tongue and you feel its coldness, that’s because heat energy is transferring from your tongue into the dessert, making your tongue colder. The extent to which that happens—and hence the amount of coldness you feel—depends not only on the temperature of the dessert but also on its ingredients, such as the amount of fat versus water. Try this little experiment: Reach into your freezer, pull out an ice cube and a stick of butter, and grasp them for a minute. The semifreddo, cherry sauce, and candied nuts can all be prepared well in They’re both the same temperature, but advance of serving time, making this an ideal dessert for company. the ice cube feels colder. That’s because frozen water can take in more heat from of melting it beforehand. Once the custard cooled, your body (and more quickly) than frozen fat, so I gently folded in softly whipped cream. Finally, I your hand loses more heat and feels colder. For the Soft Serve I immediately ruled out using whipped egg whites poured the custard into a plastic wrap–lined loaf pan same reason, at equal serving temperatures, an ice to lighten the custard, as they tended to produce a (that way, it would detach more easily from the pan) cream with more fat in it will seem less cold in your mouth than a leaner recipe. chewy, marshmallow-like semifreddo. I wanted a and froze it until solid, which took about 6 hours. But I had gone overboard: While the semifreddo version that was lush and rich, so whipped cream had deep chocolate flavor, it was so rich that I would be my aerator of choice. TECHNIQUE I started with a particularly rich custard from my couldn’t eat more than a few bites. Also, despite the research: I heated ¾ cup of heavy cream in a sauce- fact that it had just come out of the freezer, it seemed SMOOTH THE SIDES AND TOP pan, thoroughly whisked it into five beaten egg yolks to lack a certain refreshing coldness. I decided to mixed with a few tablespoons of sugar, and poured cut some richness from the next batch of custard by the custard back into the saucepan to cook gently replacing the heavy cream with an equal amount of until it reached 160 degrees. I then introduced a milk. The dessert tasted lighter for sure—too lean, nifty trick: I quickly poured the hot custard over in fact. And in contrast to the fattier semifreddo, this 8 ounces of chopped bittersweet chocolate so that one seemed overly cold, almost like a popsicle. It the chocolate melted, which saved me the extra step also melted a lot faster. (For more information, see “Keeping Semifreddo in Shape.”) I would obviously need to add back some fat, so See Annie Chill Out for my next batch, I used heavy cream cut with ¼ A step-by-step video is available cup water (this combo still had more fat than milk Before slicing, use an ofset spatula to smooth any at CooksIllustrated.com/jun18 alone). This time I nailed it: The semifreddo was wrinkles on the surface of the semifreddo. lush, sliced neatly, and—interestingly—tasted cold COOK’S
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PHOTOGRAPHY: CARL TREMBLAY
love ice cream, but it isn’t the most elegant way to cap off an evening. Serving a scoop (even homemade) at a dinner party always feels a little too casual. Enter semifreddo, a classic Italian dessert that’s often described as a frozen mousse. (Though it’s fully frozen, its name roughly translates as “half-frozen.”) There are many styles, but like ice cream (or gelato), semifreddo typically starts with a custard base. However, instead of being churned in an ice cream maker, semifreddo is lightened with whipped cream and/or beaten egg whites. Then it’s frozen in a loaf pan until solid, unmolded, and cut into neat slices. But instead of being hard and densely packed, semifreddo is soft enough that it easily caves to the pressure of a spoon. Better yet, unlike ice cream, it can sit out of the freezer for an extended period of time without melting, which makes it ideal for serving to company. An elegant frozen dessert that doesn’t require an ice cream maker, doesn’t melt easily, and is make-ahead by design? That checks a lot of boxes for me, so I tried a bunch of chocolate versions (my favorite flavor) that looked appealing.
