When we first started developing the Royale Extra Dark Chocolate we were 100% focused on making the RICHEST chocolate ice cream out there or, at best, in Seattle, Washington.

We made up batches, tasted them, tweaked them and re-made batches.  We drove all the way down to Oregon tasted it with our food scientist at OSHU, we traveled down to see our friends for a tasting party at Salt and Straw in Portland Oregon and we even bought all other chocolate ice creams in and around Seattle to compare.  What we found was most people just use cocoa powder to lend a chocolate flavor, or very little chocolate.  That left us wanting to pack as much chocolate flavor in as possible to make ours impossible not to love.

Remembering back on the last batch we churned with our ice dairy expert and fast-forwarding to now seems like so long ago.  We see buckets upon buckets being sold daily and it’s crazy to hear people expressing how rich and creamery it is.  NAILED IT!!

The secret to it all…………

We use 3 types of chocolate to make it extra Royale.

  • 70% Dark Chocolate – Strong bitter dark chocolate with citrus notes
  • 40% Lait Supreme (Milk Chocolate) – Deep creamy caramel undertones
  •  22%-24% Nederland chocoa Cocoa powder- earthy, bitter and rich

Why three types?  Great question!  70% chocolate is bitter, dark and almost acidic so by adding in a sweet creamy milk chocolate balances it out for a deeper flavor, they work together in harmony!

Why cocoa powder? Another great question! Cocoa powder is all the remaining goodness that is left over after extracting the cocoa butter, so you are left with deep dark earthy flavor. Cocoa powder is a team player; it works well with others especially fat and sugar (in walks cream and brown sugar.)

We feel coffee goes great with chocolate so we tossed in some decaffeinated Stumptown Coffee in there to really play off all the earthy caramel notes.

Brown sugar adds a deeper sweetness and nutty flavor to round out the sweetness while also preserving the deep chocolate.

Finally we throw in some double fold vanilla extract and kosher salt to complete Royale Extra Dark Chocolate Ice Cream.

So there you have it, there are no secrets to making fantastic, toe curling chocolate ice cream.

Fresh, high quality, local unadulterated goodness.  Now let’s grab a spoon and dig in!

 

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