For the love of sprinkles, let's talk about Ice Cream.

I just returned from Vermont where I spent four days visiting my two older sisters, my dad, and my new nephew. Among the not so long list of things to do in Vermont, standouts included lots of baby time, eating lots of things with maple syrup, looking at stone walls, watching hot air balloons, playing with farm animals, more baby time, and of course eating lots of soft serve ice cream.

In fact, I even visited the Whippi Dip, my first "restaurant" job in which I flipped burgers, twirled cones, and scooped sundaes.  I won't lie to you, back in the day I was the Queen of the Whippi Dip. Despite being hot, sticky, and generally disgusting all summer long, those two summers of ruling the Dip instilled in me a long lasting love of soft serve ice cream. And of course rainbow sprinkles...

I ate a lot, a lot, of soft serve. Considering the time constraints, I really tried to do my part to contribute to the local, small-town economy. Personally, I'm not a fan of the twist, I prefer plain chocolate or vanilla in a cone with a side dish of rainbow sprinkles for consistent sprinkle coverage. It's a method I've developed over the years. Laugh all you want, but it's delicious.

There's also something fairly satisfying about eating it in the car it feels more summery that way, but I won't hold you to it. While I am working on my plans for soft serve in Seattle, I've been working on something that's almost just as good. Or rather, it's good in a different way, and I won't tell if you dip them in sprinkles.

Salted Chocolate Fudgesicles.

I probably have to call them Fudge Popsicles, or Fudge Pops or something like that, but just for the purpose of being a descriptive nomenclator, they really are Fudgesicles. I didn't grow up in a town with an Ice Cream truck, but if I did, I think this is all I would have wanted...

This recipe is adapted from On a Stick 

1/4 cup milk chocolate chips (I used Valdrona Chocolate)
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon plus a pinch salt
1 tablespoon butter

Melt chocolate until smooth using a microwave in short bursts, or the stove using a heavy sauce pan and a very low temp. Stir in sugar, cornstarch, cocoa powder, milk, vanilla, and a teaspoon of salt and cook over medium heat until mixture thickens. The originally recipe says ten minutes, but it took me around five minutes. The mixture at this point should look like pudding.  Let mixture cool slightly and add remaining pinch of salt. Stir and then pour into Popsicles molds (depending on you mold size 8 to 16 Popsicles). Place in freezer and let freeze for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes add Popsicle sticks and continue to freeze until fully frozen.

To remove place molds in hot water and rotate Popsicles sticks slightly until fudgesicle pops out.

Cheers!