Chocolate frozen yoghurt

Ever tried to combine tangy yoghurt with chocolate and then freeze it? While this sensation might not be for everyone, I am quite fond of it myself. Read on!

Quite “pure” chocolate frozen yoghurt

More intriguing than ordinary chocolate ice cream

As you may know, frozen yoghurts may not always contain very much actual yoghurt. But today’s recipe certainly does! All this yoghurt gives a special touch to the chocolate flavour – I hesitate to say “tangy” but it is certainly derived from there. Myself, I find this quite intriguing and way less ‘plain and mundane’ than many ‘normal’ chocolate ice creams can be. My children agree with me so take it from us: if you like chocolate, give it a try and see if you like it too! 

So, what else is in there? Following my own guidelines for better froyos, the actual yoghurt used is of the Turkish type (dense, with a fat content of 10 %). The chocolate should (as always) be of good quality – the one I used had a cocoa content of 50 %, and I would suggest that you at least do not go below that. Chocolate purists may want to aim for 70 %, but  I leave this delicate choice to your personal preferences.

Adding to the flavour, I used raw sugar (but ordinary white will do just fine too!),  a little golden syrup, and a good pinch of salt. Towards the end, I also add some Italian meringue in order to further improve the consistency: the effect is nice and makes up for the fact that the overall fat content of this froyo stays (relatively) low. I like to add that the idea to add meringue to the yoghurt came to me from my talented Czech ice cream friend Katerina and her experiments in froyo-perfection!

Should you like to skip the Italian meringue, there are other possibilities:  First of all – consider making the “vegan alternative” to Italian meringue: Aquafaba! It is super-easy, and the result is basically just as good as if you’d be using the Italian meringue.

Otherwise, I would suggest that you consider using cream (or sour cream of a type which can be cooked) instead of the milk, add a little more sugar, and even a sheet of gelatine (or agar agar, or an egg or two) to the chocolate sauce to make sure the consistency turns out to your liking. If you dare, you might also whip up 1-2 egg whites and add them towards the end (a common Italian meringue-replacement). But then again: if you plan on eating your froyo rather quickly after preparation, there is little need for any further stabilisation: you may well get by without it.

As you will see, I also added a little milk – mainly in order to make it easier to melt the chocolate and prepare the chocolate sauce  (in other words, if you don’t want to add that milk, just find another way to do that).

Preparations: Make a (kind of) chocolate sauce and mix it with the yoghurt

Turkish yoghurt is quite similar to Greek yoghurt, but usually a bit more tangy. In other words, you can typically use any of the two. Just make sure that the fat content is about 10 percent if you want a nicer, final consistency.

And making the froyo base is relatively easy too: basically all the things that will add flavour and sweetness to the yoghurt go into a saucepan, together with a little milk – the chocolate, the sugar, the cocoa powder,  a little golden syrup and a good pinch of salt. Heat, whisk and dissolve. Very soon, you will have a nice, dense and very sweet chocolate sauce!

The chocolate sauce contains everything else in the recipe except for the yoghurt itself (and the Italian meringue, which will be added towards the end of the churning). The picture shows the golden syrup (a type of inverted sugar) entering the mix.

Once this sauce is ready and has cooled down, mix it into the yoghurt: your frozen yoghurt base is now ready to churn!

Mix them and you have the base: the yoghurt to the left and the chocolate sauce (by now containing basically all other ingredients) to the right.

When the churning is almost finished, add a suitable amount of Italian meringue to your froyo. This special, soft meringue basically consists of egg whites and sugar. Historically, it has been used to improve the consistency of sorbets, but the principle can be applied also to frozen yoghurts – read all about Italian meringue here, where the detailed instructions for how to prepare it also are set out (I won’t repeat them in this post).

Italian meringue – the classic sorbet companion can also improve the consistency of frozen yoghurt

After the addition of the Italian meringue, let the churning continue to the end. Your chocolate froyo is ready! Enjoy!

Or save it for later in the freezer – put it in a freezer-safe container, and cover well with plastic film and a lid. Thanks to the combination of the ingredients (particularly the fat- and sugar parts) and the Italian meringue, your chocolate froyo should handle storage in the freezer well. 

Yummy – the chocolate froyo can be enjoyed right after churning

The pleasantly soft and scoopable consistency remains even after the chocolate frozen yoghurt has spent time in the freezer

As I wrote in the beginning, the yoghurt adds a particular twist to the overall chocolate flavour which I personally like and find quite intriguing. It certainly won’t end up tasting just like any “plain” chocolate ice cream. If you would like to give you and your tastebuds a special chocolate experience, give this a go!