Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
The weekend parades may be over but the revelries continue today and tonight. If you’re so inclined to celebrate with something with alcohol, forget the green beer and instead consider this special treat that you can easily whip up at home: Chocolate Guinness Beer Floats with Salted Dulce de Leche Sauce.
This cocktail-dessert hybrid combines the most Irish of all beers and two of the best things on the planet: chocolate and dulce de leche. Guinness and chocolate pair perfectly together – dark and bitter and velvety – but adding some salted caramel sauce takes everything up a notch.
I made my own salted dulce de leche sauce by combining a couple of tablespoons of thick dulce de leche with a little cream and smoked sea salt. I always keep cans of Nestle La Lechera Dulce De Leche in my pantry for desserts, and (let’s not lie) for eating directly with a spoon. You can use jarred dulce de leche (I like La Salamandra), or make your own (Smitten Kitchen has a great post for homemade dulce de leche). You can also use salted caramel (I like the fleur de sel caramel sauce from Trader Joe’s) or make your own (Lauren from Keep It Sweet can show you how to make salted caramel sauce without a candy thermometer).
Of course you can just make a two-ingredient float – just Guinness beer and chocolate ice cream – that’s delicious as well. But the little touches (dark chocolate rim, salted dulce de leche sauce) make these floats special.
Using great quality ice cream is also key. I used Batch chocolate ice cream, from the local ice cream company I love. Batch ice cream is made from scratch, using fresh ingredients from local farms, using no stabilizers or artificial flavors. The chocolate version is so creamy and pure-tasting.
The last time I made ice cream floats, it brought me back to my high school days, but now there’s nothing high school and sweet about these floats. These Chocolate Guinness Beer Floats are all adult. Thick, creamy beer, almost milky chocolate ice cream, luxurious salted dulce de leche sauce, and a dark chocolate rim all combine for a dark and intensely chocolate-y concoction.
1 cup chocolate ice cream
1 can (14.9 oz) Guinness beer
dark chocolate shavings
2 tablespoons dulce de leche
1 tablespoon heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon smoked sea salt or any flaky salt (I used smoked Maldon salt)
Do you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day? What’s your favorite float flavor? Raspberry Beer Floats will always have a special place in my heart.