Recipe adapted from Thomas Keller and the New York Times.
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The Baker, Writer, Recipe Maker
Hey there! Thanks for visiting my blog. I'm Irvin Lin, an award winning baker, graphic designer, photographer, storyteller, recipe developer, writer and man about town. Hilarity often ensues when I'm involved. I currently reside in San Francisco in the neighborhood people have recently taken to calling "The Gastro" - a block from Dolores Park and right near Tartine Bakery, Bi Rite Market & Creamery, and Delfina.I co-host the quarterly DIY Dessert event at 18 Reasons. The next DIY Dessert event will be held on Sunday, June 3rd from 2pm to 4pm. The theme will be pies! I can also be found at various food events around the city. Feel free to contact me by clicking on that picture of me up above or emailing me eatthelove {at} gmail {dot} com.
Join me April 28th, 2012!
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“Irvin Lin is the creative mind behind his Eat the Love food blog. Lin’s impressive photography skills support his training in graphic design on the site, and you would never believe that is food blogger is a self-taught baker.” - PBS Food
“We love Eat the Love because Irvin's beautiful sweets look as good as they taste — his art director's eye appreciates the ruby sparkle of a pile of pomegranate seeds against the matte canvas of chocolate ganache.”
- Saveur.com, Sites We Love“Lin, a designer and baker, shares his passion for baking with creative sweets that focus on seasonal ingredients with healthy doses of humor and charm. It's impossible not to read his site and crave dessert.”
- Yum Food & Fun Magazine
Books I Recently Acquired
Desserts by Michel Roux
Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home by Jeni Britton Bauer
Momofuku Milk Bar by Christina Tosi
Bi-Rite Market's Eat Good Food by Sam Mogannam and Dabney Gough 
Martha Stewart's New Pies and Tarts: 
Serious Eats by Ed Levine and the editors of seriouseats.com
The Fearless Baker by Emily Luchetti & Lisa Weiss
The Cook's Illustrated Cookbook by the editors of Cook's Illustrated
Cookies at Home with The Culinary Institute of America by Todd Knaster
Plum Gorgeous: Recipes and Memories from the Orchard by Romney Steele
The Silver Spoon New Edition By Phaidon Press
Cookies for Kids Cancer: Best Bake Sale Cookbook by Gretchen Holt-Witt
They Draw and Cook: by Nate Padavick & Salli Swindell
Cook without a Book: Meatless Meals by Pam Anderson
Sugar, Sugar by Kimberely "Momma" Reiner and Jenna Sanz-Agero 
Vegan Desserts by Hannah Kaminski
Flour by Joanne Chang
Books I Love
Baking: From My Home to Yours From my home to yours by Dorie Greenspan
Pie: 300 Tried-and-True Recipes for Delicious Homemade Pie by Ken Haedrich
Desserts by the Yard From Brooklyn to Beverly Hills, recipes from the sweetest life ever by Sherry Yard
The Flavor Bible The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity by Karen Page, Andrew Dornenburg
Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef A love story with 100 tempting recipes by Shauna James and Daniel Ahern
Good to the Grain Baking with Whole Grain Flours by Kim Boyce
Ratio The simple codes behind the craft of everyday cooking by Michael Ruhlman
Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito
Professional Baking 5th Edition by Wayne Gisslen
Ready for Dessert My Best Recipes by David Lebovitz
The Secrets of Baking by Sherry
Tartine by Elisabeth Prueitt, Chad Robertson
{ 93 comments… read them below or add one }
I love it! Especially the eating it photos…
Great stuff.
Genius.
So loving this!
love this idea!! great post!
Could you please clarify the last couple steps?
You should eat the chocolate dipped ice cream cone while looking pensively at the camera. I’m sure if you have any questions you can ask your wife about that.
I loved this! I might have to try it for my family, with out the coconut oil due to an allergy.
Thanks for the smiles today!
elizabeyta
Oh I’m sorry to hear about your coconut allergy! That said, from what I’ve read and heard, most people who are allergic to coconut are allergic to the protein in the coconut meat. The protein isn’t present in the oil so it should be safe.
But, of course, everyone has their own level of sensitivity, so obviously you should avoid it if you are sensitive! The coconut oil helps set the chocolate fast on the ice cream cone, as well as thin it out. But if you can’t use it, I’m sure melted chocolate will do. Just make sure the ice cream is really cold/stick the cone in the freezer for a little bit before eating it!
Thanks for stopping by!
You don’t have to say a word! Love it.
Love this!
This is gorgeous and very well done Irvin! I love the shot of chocolate being drizzled over the ice-cream. Looking forward to more!
Yum — and yum, yum, yum again. Brilliant handling of a recipe.
What a nice change from the usual. Now. I just happened to see this recipe in the Chronicle. Adapted from Thomas Keller. Did you say that somewhere?
At the very bottom is an attribution line that says “Recipe adapted from Thomas Keller and the New York Times.” with a link to the NYT article where I originally saw it.
It was in the Chronicle too? How funny!
Right! Sorry I missed that. Too busy drooling over the cone.
Love this! It makes me laugh, both because of the great fun photos and because I’m remembering having lots of fun with (more plasticy) magic shell as a kid. Thank you!
Very very cool! My kids can follow along and make their own.
Genius. Pure genius.
Love it! Great Pictures and so creative!
Brilliant! Love the photographs.
Love this wordless post. Love it!
Question: what purpose does the coco oil serve? Does it help the “shell” harden faster, make it easier to pour, what? Inquisitive minds want to know! xo
Yes, it’s the coconut oil that makes it shell. Coconut oil is liquid at 76 degrees, solid below that. So it hardens as soon as it hits the cold ice cream.
Great stuff, awesome post!
Wonderful post! I love the wordless concept and that you demystify something that many would think you could only get at the supermarket (or at the Dairy Queen).
Bravo!!!!
HAWT!!!
this is just brilliant… love the photos – the ones of you guys eating made me giggle-out-loud! =D i would go crazy with sprinkles, or nuts a la drumsticks!
This is much too cool. Must.try.immediately.
Cannot overstate how cool this post is. I would buy a cookbook like this in a heartbeat as it truly beats reading recipes…
This is beautiful, easily my favorite non-holiday post. Even if it does need more peanut butter ….
What a treat, and so simple without all the additives in the magic shells on the supermarket shelves!
And it tastes at least 10x better than the supermarket stuff! Just make sure to use quality chocolate to begin with.
Great concept! And delicious treat!
Wonderful fun, now it makes me curious. will other chocolates work as well?
I haven’t tried it with other chocolates, but I imagine it would. Milk chocolate or even white chocolate would probably work. The coconut oil really thins out the chocolate so it’s not super thick when you spoon it over the ice cream and since coconut oil hardens at 76˚F it totally helps the chocolate to harden fast.
If you try it with different chocolates, let me know your results! I’m a dark chocolate person myself so…
Adorable! I <3 chocolate shell so I have a feeling I will be using this a ton!
This is FABULOUS. Not just because it’s innovative and different — but it does what words can’t … it is so nice to see what the intermediate steps are supposed to look like … it’s not just a gimmick – there’s real value. And it was Laugh Out Loud to see that first photo of AJ. =)
You should forward to the Chronicle so they can add a link to their article!
you really are the bees knees . . . oh, and brilliant!
Fab. You. Lous.
And Captcha + Moderation = Overkill.
Whoops! Sorry. I just instigated the Captcha because of the insane amount of spam. Since launching my new site about a month ago, I’ve had over 300 spam comments. That should be fixed so if you have to do the Captcha again, and get it right, it’ll get published automatically.
Brilliant! I am sending this to our family friend who buys the toxic kind!
I LOVE it! That would be so good with So Delicious coconut milk ice cream! YUM!!!
This would be great with the So Delicious coconut milk ice cream! It would make it vegan too (as long as you got vegan chocolate to melt).
You can only taste a hint of the coconut in the coconut oil (I use unrefined – if you use refined coconut oil, there’s not coconut flavor at all). But with the coconut milk ice cream, you’d definitely get great layers of coconut flavor.
Love it! Do more, and have them all end with “consuming” photos – the best part!
There will be more to come. And since consuming the item at the end is the best part, I doubt that I would leave photos of that out!
This wordless recipe is too cool! Love your photos!
Spectacular!!
Very cool & clever. You are going to have imitators soon, I may be one of them.
Wordless recipe? How cool is that!
wo hooooo……………..by using coconut oil, it gives tasty and savoury flavour to your beloved dark chocolate…so yummy
You know, I’ve always wondered how you could make that at home. Thanks for sharing!
Wordless is so smart, simple and fun!
Can’t decide which “eating” photo I love most. They’re all so cute. I think I love the one of your friend in glasses gazing far off into the distance, as if the ice cream is helping him think intensely profound thoughts. Or maybe there was a bird outside the window. Or maybe he was just trying to take as big of a bite as possible. LOL.
Great job!
Do you think it would work to melt it all in a double boiler type thingy…I do not (will not) own a microwave??? If so..can’t wait to buy some gf cones and df ice cream (or make it). Yeah, with nuts and make a drumstick version!
Love the blue glasses : )
Thanks : )
Yes, definitely! The reason I used a microwave was mostly to simplify the recipe. Explaining a double boiler via photographs would be more difficult, and not as many people are familiar with double boilers. Everyone knows how to use a microwave (even if they don’t own one).
But yes, a double boiler TOTALLY would work. You just need to have something that will melt the chocolate and coconut oil. And nuts and sprinkles would be great on it!
I love this, exponentially.
I bet I could make homemade klondike style bars with this tip!
Mmm. I used to LOVE klondike bars. You’d have to figure out how to mold them into those square bars though.
It’s because coconut oil has such a high melting point! Wooooo!
I just recently did a post about what I think of as the ‘Original’ hard shell topping for ice cream, Gold Brick Topping. Available only in small markets near where it’s produced, I’ve craved it since I was a kid and it was served at a restaurant I went to with my mom. It’s a combination of butter and chocolate (and pecans) which I love but this looks great and different..nothing wrong with some coconut and chocolate.
I grew up in St. Louis, and I have vague memories of Gold Brick Topping and definite memories of Stix, Baer and Fuller! I was never a huge fan of nuts on my ice cream, but I do have fond memories of Dairy Queen and their dipped cones, as well as magic shell coating, thus this post.
A wordless recipe– I love this idea and what a wonderful way to cook. I’m a visual person, so definitely a better way for me to remember recipes! Looking forward to the others…
Love, love, love this! I am making it with homemade strawberry coconut ice cream. This is such a fabulous idea with chocolate! Thanks for sharing!
Mmmmm! Lookin’ delicious
This. Is. AWESOME!
This so reminds me of my childhood!!!
Outside our school by the gates, there was always this guy a.k.a. “Manong” who sells dirty ice cream. For 5 pesos, you can buy a cone of assorted flavor usually cheese, chocolate and vanilla. Manong using his spade expertly shaped it into rose and dipped it into this chocolately mixture just like this one but only thinner. The rose shaped ice cream would be blanketed with this thin crisp chocolate mixture perfect for after school dessert!
That sounds so cool! I love the idea of rose shaped ice cream! Glad that I inspired the nostalgia.
I love the progression of photos in this post! I haven’t had magic chocolate shell ice cream in ages, and now I’m totally craving some.
I am thanking you in advance for winning brownie points and kisses from my kids. I love using coconut oil-pair it with chocolate and we are in business!
So much fun!
This is awesome! I love your photographs and the wordless recipe. I can’t wait to see more.
Its like magic……..only better!
Sometimes words are not needed!
Love the post!
Hi Irvin, found you through Twitter. Absolutely dig your Wordless Recipe concept, looking forward to more. I’m a sucker for this chocolate shell ice cream (sadly from McDonalds) and now I can make my own. Great stuff!
I didn’t know that McDonald’s even did chocolate coated cones! I used to get them from Dairy Queen. But when you tries these, trust me, they taste WAY better than any fast food establishment treat.
If you can’t do the ready-made cones (because of gluten or simply by choice), something else to try is making a chocolate bowl for your ice cream… (I haven’t personally tried this, but a friend of mine was studying to be a professional chef, and made this for my dessert when she cooked me dinner one time.)
Blow up a small balloon, dip it in melted chocolate (maybe a few times?), and place on a parchment-coated cookie sheet in the freezer. When the chocolate is set, pop the balloon and remove it, but keep the bowl frozen until ready to serve.
The brand Let’s Do Organic, which are the ice cream cones I used, makes a gluten free ice cream cone.
That said, I’ve totally made ice cream bowls in the manner you’ve suggested. They are surprisingly easy and super fun to make (and impressive to whomever you are serving them to). You don’t need to dip it several times, but just make sure there’s enough chocolate on all sides to form a large enough “bowl”. Also make sure to not use too large a balloon, and to let chocolate chill long enough to solidify before popping the balloon.
Best thing ever!!!!!!!!!!
Super fun guys – dang that is a lot of photos. Well worth the ice cream treat during and after
love, love this wordless idea! plus, a dessert I can make-winning!
The photos are fantastic & especially the pensive expressions that came with the breaking of the magic shell.
Well, you are just so creative and clever and funny, Irvin–all that and charming, to. I am blown away by this! AND the recipe actually looks like something I would really enjoy making and eating. Now the trick is–can you do a recipe for Devil’s Food cake or perhaps buttercream-filled French macarons without words?
Ahh. That IS the trick isn’t it? Stay tuned to see what recipes I take on next…
That looks yummy!
More wordless recipes please! Then a book… then come visit me in Australia and demonstrate in my kitchen… bring your leopard skin pants…
I mean a book of wordless recipes.
I love the recipe presentation!
This is absolutely brilliant! I found your blog through the premiere issue of MasterChef magazine. Really, brilliant.
I love this! What a clever and innovative way to blog a recipe.
Well played, boys. Well played indeed.
Mm, I can vouch for these bctuiiss as well – they're utterly delicious. I bet whoever received them was very happy!Congrats on the panel!
OMG the dipped cone is my absolute favorite summer treat! To make it myself with good quality chocolate oh Irvin you’ve helped me create heaven. No Words can explain my joy. Merci.
Thanks Allison. Glad you found it! Let me tell you I loved a good dipped cone when I was a kid, but with quality chocolate, it takes them to a whole new level…
Mmmmm. This looks yummy. LOVE dark chocolate. I’ve actually been wanting a recipe to use for chocolate dipped bananas. I’m going to give this a try. Thanks.
I am so happy to see how to REALLY do this. Many years ago as a young bride I tried to make hot fudge sauce for my husband. I didn’t have the right ingredients so I substituted somethings. It wound up hardening in the bowl, cementing the spoon to the bottom and the ice cream melted underneath. I have never lived that down. I am happy to report that it remains my worst kitchen disaster ever, so I haven’t done that bad over the years.