Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Mint Ice Cream

Okay, I have the official report back from the fresh mint ice cream.

Yum!!!

It was really really good. And not green at all. Imagine that! :)


It ended up with a really nice subtle real mint taste.


Brenna didn't care for the amount of mint that was in it, but Gavin loved it. Here he is eating both his bowl and her bowl.


Fresh Mint Ice Cream
- makes about 1 quart (1 liter) -

Ingredients
1 cup whole milk

3/4 cup sugar

2 cups heavy cream

Pinch of salt

2 cups lightly packed fresh mint leaves

5 large egg yolks

chocolate chips; optional(I used 1/2 cup, but next time I would use more. Maybe 3/4 of a cup? and honestly something not quite as bulky as chocolate chips would be better...like chocolate shavings...)


1. Warm the milk, sugar, 1 cup of the cream, and salt in a small saucepan. Add the mint leaves and stir until they're immersed in the liquid. Cover, remove from the heat, and let steep at room temperature for 1 hour.

2. Strain the mint-infused mixture through a mesh strainer into a medium saucepan. Press on the mint leaves to extract as much of the flavor as possible, then discard the mint leaves. Pour the remaining 1 cup heavy cream into a large bowl and set the strainer on top.

3. Rewarm the mint-infused mixture. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm mint liquid into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

4. Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream. Stir until cool over an ice bath.

5. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator. then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. Add the chocolate chips per manufacturer's instructions.

4 comments:

Megs said...

Sounds yummy! Let's make some while I'm home!

Tracy Million Simmons said...

Thank you for the inspiration! We made a lot of homemade ice cream last summer, but I never thought of making it with fresh mint. Yum!

Mary said...

I wish I had an ice cream maker! This sounds fabulous. I am a tea drinker, so I've got my apple mint drying in a lovely upside down bunch in the kitchen! It smells so good!

Fun to find another SV fan! You have a neat blog here!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for posting this. I made it mostly as you suggested, using the mint in our herb garden. I chopped up two 3-ounce bars of Lake Champlain dark chocolate (54% cocoa) with a chef's knife and added it at the end of freezing. I also used skim milk instead of whole milk and that worked fine. It tasted great. My 5 year-old son loved it as well. I will make this again.