Blackberry and salted chocolate gelato

MAKES: 1 kg (10 scoops) Ingredients

105g caster sugar

45g dextrose

1 tbsp skim milk powder

5g carob bean powder

515g milk

130ml pouring cream

200g fresh blackberries

80g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), broken into small chunks

Pinch of sea salt flakes

Method

Put the sugar, dextrose and skim milk powder in a bowl and mix to combine.

Put the carob bean powder in a separate bowl. Add 2 tablespoons of the sugar mixture and mix together well.

Pour the milk and cream into a large heavy-based saucepan over a medium heat. Whisk in the carob bean powder mixture and continue to heat, whisking in the sugar mixture as you go, until it hits 85C. Remove from the heat, pour into a suitable lidded container and leave to cool in the freezer for 1 hour, or until the mixture drops to 4C.

Turn on your gelato maker so it begins the freezing process. Add the blackberries to the mixture and blend with a hand-held blender until smooth.

Strain the mixture to remove the seeds and transfer it to your gelato maker. Once it reaches –4C or is the consistency of soft-serve ice cream (this should take about 30–45 minutes) detach the canister or scoop the gelato into a pre-cooled lidded container. Transfer to the freezer and leave for 1 hour to harden.

Melt the chocolate with the salt in a double boiler. Once melted, remove from the heat and leave it to cool to room temperature, then add it to the gelato, drizzling it over and mixing it in with a spatula to break it up into a chip. Place it back in the freezer and leave it for at least 1 hour to harden further before serving.