3 cups water

2 tablespoons corn syrup

1 cup sugar

2/3 cup cocoa powder

3 ounces dark chocolate, 60 percent cocoa content or higher

1 tablespoon vanilla

½ cup crystallized ginger, chopped into small pieces

1. In a heavy medium saucepot, combine water, corn syrup and sugar over low heat. Stir until sugar dissolves. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium and simmer for 2 minutes. Whisk in cocoa, and simmer until cocoa dissolves and mixture is smooth, about 2 more minutes.

There’s an unseasonably arctic chill in the air, and we’ve just had several inches of snow dumped on our doorstep. No doubt about it, it’s time to make ice cream.

It’s true, ice cream season never ends in our household. One year the gelato machine tried to hibernate, but we tracked it to its lair and roused it, because we needed to make pumpkin and chestnut ice creams more than our weary, secondhand Simac needed to rest.