Today is the last day of February. Last day of winter I hope!
Usually I like winter, but this year  wait for spring so much! Probably because we have been infected so many times, we coughed so heavily that only spring can help us to recover and stand up again….
To enjoy sunshine, being on the playground without freezing and walk around the village searching for new ladybirds, caterpillars and snowdrops.

I would have liked to celebrate the end of winter with something special, and make some sweet for my boys to warn them: hello boys, very soon spring is here then You can get this every day! So I made a homemade milk chocolate-hazelnut ice cream flavored with Cointreau, that I’d like to nominate for this month’s food photography challenge at Junglefrog Cooking where the theme is: everything that’s homemade!

Ingredients:

Serves 6-8

250 ml double cream
250 ml full fat milk
4 tbsp sugar (or to taste)
100 gr hazelnut
50 gr milk chocolate chips
3 egg yolks
2 tbsp Cointreau (optional) 

plus some toasted hazelnut to serve

If You make homemade ice cream always keep in mind that ice cream mixture before freezing has to be flavored more intensively then normally expected as you will lose  lots of tastes after freezing

1. Pour milk and cream into a glass measure cup and heat in the microwave oven for a few minutes on medium. 
2. Toast hazelnuts in a dry, clean pan. Wait they getting golden and then set aside. Leave for a few minutes to cool and then place them on a kitchen towel, wrap well and roll them. They will loose the outside peel easily. Then put the cleaned nuts into a food processor and ground it roughly. 
3. Put the egg yolks and sugar  into a stainless steel bowl and beat lightly with a wire whisk. Place the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and add gradually the hot milk and cream mixture. 
4. Stir regularly with a wooden spoon and cook until the custard thickens enough to coat the back of spoon. Remove immediately from the hob. 
5. Melt the chocolate in microwave oven on medium for a few minutes. 
6. Stir into custard, add the toasted roughly ground hazelnuts and Cointreau too.
7. Combine well and leave to cool to room temperature, meanwhile stir occasionally. 
8. If the ice cream mixture cold transfer into ice cream maker and process according to manufacturer’s instruction. Once made, transfer to a chilled container and keep in the freezer.