As you might be able to tell by now, I have been enjoying the new challenge of developing Ninja Swirl recipes. We have my Ninja Swirl vanilla soft serve, my Dole Whip flavour and a delightful strawberry soft serve recipe. Today? We’re making Ninja Swirl chocolate soft serve.
This chocolate soft serve is made with a few simple ingredients for a decadently chocolate-y soft serve. It uses cocoa powder for the chocolate flavour, along with sugar and glucose syrup or corn syrup (not the high fructose kind) for sweetening, texture and body.
Milk and full fat thickened cream and a pinch of salt round out this incredibly good chocolate soft serve. Shall we get straight to it?
Ingredient notes
Let’s get the easy ones out of the way. I recommend full fat milk and full fat thickened cream for this recipe. Full fat thickened cream in Australia contains 30-35% milk fat. Abroad, it might be called heavy cream, heavy whipping cream or whipping cream. The most important aspect is the fat percentage. Try to choose a cream between 30-36% fat for best results. Cream with too much fat (clotted cream, for example) puts the ice cream at a much higher risk of splitting.
Combining two types of sugar (caster sugar/white sugar and glucose syrup or corn syrup) is my new favourite way to make a Ninja recipe. Caster sugar brings the plain, clean sweetness but it does nothing to improve the texture of your ice cream. Glucose or corn syrup adds texture, body and ‘chew’ to your ice cream without adding an excessive amount of sweetness. The combination works like a dream to create a dreamy ice cream or soft serve texture.
In Australia, glucose syrup is the most common syrup available. I buy mine in Australian supermarkets. Make sure it is gluten free if it needs to be. In the USA, the most common variety is corn syrup. Not to be confused with high fructose corn syrup, although some brands of corn syrup do contain HFCS. I recommend Karo brand light corn syrup. Whatever brand you choose, make sure it is the light version (light refers to the colour and flavour as opposed to the calories).
I haven’t tested light agave syrup here but it might be worth testing if you can’t find either product. I haven’t tested sweetened condensed milk here either. With that said, it did work really well in my Ninja Swirl vanilla soft serve so I daresay it would work here. In that recipe, I tested 125g sweetened condensed milk and omitted the sugar.
Sugar and ice cream or soft serve
If you read my Ninja Creami posts, you will know that I go on about this all the time. It is important, though, so I am about to go on about it again.
Ice cream lowers the freezing point of an ice cream mixture. This means that the more sugar a mixture contains, the less it is able to set. Once you have added so much sugar, the mixture is physically unable to freeze and remains more of a slushy or milkshake consistency.
In my experience, about 150g of added sugar is the most a Ninja Creami or Ninja Swirl mixture can take. I find that fruit based mixtures get a little bit more leeway which is apparently because of their high water content.
All this to say, the measurements in these recipes exist for a reason. You can’t just add more sugar to a mixture and expect it to set.
Do I need to add xanthan gum to this Ninja Swirl chocolate soft serve?
No, you don’t. However, my experience has been that mixtures with added xanthan gum pipe out of the machine much more evenly and smoothly than mixtures without xanthan gum.
Most Ninja Swirl soft serve recipes benefit from 1-2g xanthan gum per batch. I find 2g to be the sweet spot for a very pipeable consistency that doesn’t taste too gummy.
You can absolutely omit the xanthan gum, but the mixture might not pipe quite as smoothly. It will still be absolutely delicious, though!
Can I use this recipe for scoop ice cream?
Yes, you can. This recipe has been designed for the Ninja Swirl 470ml tub. For whatever reason, I have found some of my Ninja Creami recipes come up under the fill-line of the Ninja Swirl tubs, despite them ostensibly being 470ml for both machines.
This recipe doesn’t need to be made into soft serve – it is absolutely delicious as a scoop ice cream.
I recommend processing it on ‘scoop’ and ‘ice cream’ for both soft serve and scoop ice cream. The ‘soft serve’ setting processes high cream mixtures for too long which tends to churn the cream into butter. As a result, you get an oily film on the roof of your mouth after the first spoonful (and beyond). Processing the mixture on ‘scoop’ and ‘ice cream’ processes the mixture for 2 minutes which is perfect for a high cream based ice cream.
More Ninja Swirl recipes
- Ninja Swirl vanilla soft serve
- Ninja Swirl Dole Whip
- Ninja Swirl frozen yogurt
- Ninja Swirl strawberry soft serve
- More to come!
Ninja Swirl chocolate soft serve
Equipment
- Ninja Swirl machine with 470ml tubs
Ingredients
- 20-30 g dutch processed cocoa (see notes)
- 60 g boiling water
- 80 g caster sugar
- 1-2 g xanthan gum (optional, see notes)
- 125 g full fat thickened cream, 30-35% fat (might be called heavy cream, heavy whipping cream or whipping cream where you live, see notes)
- 200 g full fat milk (see notes)
- Good pinch fine salt
- 50 g glucose syrup or light corn syrup (see notes)
Instructions
- Measure your cocoa into a medium saucepan and pour over the boiling water. Whisk to combine and bloom the cocoa – you should be left with a paste consistency.
- In a medium bowl, mix together the caster sugar and xanthan gum. This helps disperse the xanthan gum which minimises the risk of it clumping when the liquid is added.
- Add the milk, cream and salt to the cocoa mixture and whisk to combine before adding the sugar and xanthan gum mixture. Whisk thoroughly and quickly to help disperse it. I recommend switching to a silicone spatula from here on out to minimise foam and to get in the corners of the pot to keep the xanthan gum from gelling up in one spot.
- Add the glucose syrup or corn syrup then transfer the mixture to the stove on a low-medium heat. Cook for 1-3 minutes or just until the sugars have completely dissolved and incorporated. The mixture should be a medium chocolate brown.
- Allow the mixture to cool slightly before pouring into your Ninja Swirl 470ml tub (make sure the bottom mechanism is closed first!). Place in the freezer for 24 hours with the lid off. Leaving the lid off can minimise the risk of the mixture forming a hump which can damage the blades of your machine.
- When you are ready to eat, process the mixture on the SCOOP and ICE CREAM settings. Using the SWIRL setting will over-process a cream based ice cream.
- You can eat the ice cream as scoops or swap the lid and add the nozzle to make soft serve using the lever. There will be some ice cream left in the base of the container if you make soft serve.
Notes
- Use more cocoa for a deeper more chocolate-y flavour or less cocoa for a lighter chocolate flavour.
- I have only tested Dutch processed cocoa as that is my preference. However, I can’t see why regular cocoa wouldn’t work.
- Xanthan gum is an optional ingredient but it does make piping the soft serve much more smooth and flowing. You can omit it if you prefer.
- You can use lactose free milk and cream in this recipe for a low FODMAP/lactose free chocolate ice cream.
- I have not tested vegan milk and cream here.
- Glucose syrup or light corn syrup are my absolute new favourite ingredients in Ninja Creami recipes. They add body and viscosity to the ice cream as well as a bit of sweetness. I have not tested any substitutes here.
- Glucose syrup is more common in Australia and can be found at the supermarket.
- Corn syrup is more common in the USA. Not all corn syrup contains high fructose corn syrup. I used Karo brand light corn syrup here. I recommend light as it is neutral in flavour and colour.
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