Things may be a little quiet around here for a couple days. I got a tooth pulled yesterday, and in between naps and trying to remember which pills I should be taking, I’m now casting around for ideas of things to eat with as little texture as possible, with the added fun of nothing hot, acidic or alcoholic.

As you might imagine, I’ve had a lot of yogurt. And cream of tomato soup. We had macaroni and cheese with steamed cauliflower last night, that went down pretty easy. So I’m not starving, but it all seems a little dull. And not very photogenic, either.

On the other hand, it was a perfect excuse for J to make me some ice cream! We dug out our copy of The Perfect Scoop, which hasn’t been seeing much use the last couple months, and I decided that plain old chocolate custard ice cream would do the trick. So J got hold of some good bittersweet chocolate and did it up, and oh my god it’s good. Like a fudgsicle, but a million times better. I can’t believe there’s a pint of it in my fridge right now and I’m not currently eating any. After the custard had chilled it was like a wonderful chocolate pudding, we almost didn’t want to put it in the ice cream maker – but it was even better afterwards.

You don’t need to wait until your next date with oral surgery to try this ice cream – go right out and make it now!

Bittersweet chocolate ice cream

from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 3 Tbsp cocoa powder
• 5 oz bittersweet chocolate
• 1 cup whole milk
• 3/4 cups sugar
• pinch of salt
• 5 egg yolks
• 1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste

Whisk together half the cream with the cocoa powder in a saucepan and bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for 30 seconds. Remove from the heat and stir in the chocolate, then stir in the rest of the cream. Scrape into a large bowl.

Combine the egg yolks in a medium bowl. In your saucepan, combine the milk, sugar and salt, and warm them up, then pour the mixture into the yolks while whisking. Pour everything back into the saucepan. Stir over medium heat until it thickens up -be sure to be scraping the bottom of the pan to avoid burning. Pour through a strainer into your reserved chocolate-cream mixture and stir it all up, then add the vanilla. Put in the fridge until cool, then freeze according to your ice cream maker’s directions.

Try not to eat it all at once – it’s bad for your teeth