Just when you thought ice cream couldn’t get any better.
As a child of the 80s, I remember when Chocolate Magic Shell first hit grocery shelves and all my friends’ kitchen cabinets. Squeezing a thick stream of chocolate syrup out of a plastic bottle directly onto a bowl of ice cream was fun enough, but watching that chocolate instantly snap into a brittle chocolate shell the shape of scooped ice cream was spell-binding.
Now an adult, I’ve discovered that the real charm is actually how easy it is to make your own chocolate magic shell at home and delight yourself with something fabulously extra. Here’s the easiest recipe ever:
Ingredients
- 3 heaped tablespoons solidified coconut oil
- 1 (8 oz) pouch Xocolatl Single-Origin Drinking Chocolate
Equipment
- Medium glass mixing bowl
- Rubber spatula
- Tablespoon
- Microwave (or a double boiler on your stovetop)
- Dry glass jar with lid
**Prep time:** 5 minutes | **Yield:** a little more than 1 cup
Instructions
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1. Scoop 3 slightly heaped tablespoons of solidified coconut oil into your mixing bowl. Don’t even think about swapping out oils! Coconut oil is the only type of oil that will completely harden within seconds of contact with ice cream when mixed with real chocolate.
If you’re not a huge fan of coconut flavor, don’t worry—you may smell it while preparing, but once solid, all you’ll taste is the flavor of chocolate. |
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2. Add an entire 8 oz pouch of our powderized, single-origin drinking chocolate. Our single-origin drinking chocolate itself is made of just 2 ingredients: naturally grown cacao from Nicaragua and organic cane sugar, making it a dark chocolate with a 55% cacao content. No fillers, stabilizers or preservatives whatsoever—just pure, small-batch dark chocolate!
Pro Tip: when you order, get 2 pouches and save one to make yourself a cup of hot chocolate. |
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3. Microwave the mixture in 15 second blasts to avoid scorching the chocolate. Stir in between blasts with a rubber spatula. If you don’t want to use a microwave, just put the glass mixing bowl in a pan full of simmering water while constantly stirring the chocolate to prevent burning at the bottom of the bowl. Don’t let any water get into the mixture when using this double boiler method.
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4. Keep stirring the mixture between blasts until the chocolate is completely smooth. Unlike chocolate chips which are in tempered form, our powderized drinking chocolate is untempered, which simply means it will melt very quickly and you won’t be stirring forever. You’ll probably only need 2 or 3 fifteen second blasts or a minute over the simmering water before your chocolate and coconut oil is smooth.
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5. Now you have your very own batch of homemade, 2-ingredient chocolate magic shell! Before pouring it on your ice cream, let it cool until it is no longer actually warm. This is the perfect time to get that glass jar. Store this deliciousness at room temperature for up to 6 weeks—not in your fridge.
If your magic shell hardens while at room temperature, just pop the jar (without the lid) into your microwave or in a pot of simmering water for a few seconds to re-liquify it. |
I prefer chocolate on chocolate on chocolate in a bowl. She prefers it on strawberry (or mint) in a cone. This would be the time for you to start planning out your flavor combinations and place your order for our Single-Origin Drinking Chocolate. Let us know in the comments which ice cream flavors you liked best with your magic shell! |
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A post-script:
Recipes online for magic shell vary in two ways: their ratios of chocolate to coconut oil and their recommendations on what type of chocolate to use. Here are my thoughts:
Coconut oil to chocolate ratio
There are 2 fats in play here–coconut oil and cocoa butter (the naturally present fat in cacao, and therefore, chocolate). The ratio in this recipe creates a firm, crackable, chocolatey shell. If you want a thinner or softer shell, increase the amount of coconut oil. If you want a thicker, harder, snappier shell, decrease the coconut oil by a teaspoon or two.
Why I recommend using our Single-Origin Drinking Chocolate
- If your aim is to use minimally-processed, high quality ingredients whenever possible, our chocolate fits the bill. Compare our chocolate (made of just 2 ingredients: cacao grown naturally and environmentally sustainably by small family farmers in the highlands of Nicaragua and organic cane sugar) to this popular brand’s ingredient list:
Literally, no cacao listed.
- While we package our Single-Origin Drinking Chocolate as drinking chocolate, it is truly multi-functional as a powderized, non-tempered chocolate. You can use it to make hot drinking chocolate, frozen drinking chocolate, chocolate syrup and even a chocolate pot de creme in addition to chocolate magic shell. If you choose our chocolate for your recipe, I recommend getting 1 bag for your batch of magic shell and 1 bag for when the weather cools down and you want some hot chocolate.
- It’s 3rd party-verified!
If you’re local to intown Atlanta and ever frequent our friends, Big Softie, you may already know that they’ve been using our chocolate to make magic shell in all their soft serve shops ever since they opened. If you can’t make it to Big Softie for a layer of snappy, hard chocolate on soft serve, now you know how to make it yourself.
We were also honored to win the Bronze Award for our Single-Origin Drinking Chocolate at the Academy of Chocolate in London back in 2018.
- Finally, if you aim to reduce your environmental footprint in your day to day life, you’ll be relieved to know that our pouch of chocolate is made of fully home compostable materials. No plastic bags and no 1980’s plastic squeeze bottles.
That’s it. Our chocolate is more expensive than whatever is behind the label I showed you above, but I’m pretty sure you know you’re worth it.
— Elaine