Homemade Mint Ice Cream

Word of warning: Mint is addictive as well as super invasive.

Addictive: I can’t stop finding new varieties I want to grow (of which I buy and do).
Invasive: Grow it in a container or it will take over your entire garden.

I couldn’t help myself when I passed a road stand that had all these amazing mint varieties for $2. $2?!?! I bought apple, chocolate and pineapple mint and rushed home to find a spare container to plant them in. The mint scent lingers on your hands as you plant and it smells fresh and like summer. I have been putting mint in everything lately from salads to my ice cream. It’s been a few years since I’ve had the time to whip out the ice cream maker but I had mint that needed cutting so that’s what I decided to do.

I bought this ice cream maker over 7 years ago at Williams Sonoma after taking a cookbook class there. (ahhhh to have nothing to do on a Wednesday night again). They used to have these classes at the store where you would cook 2 – 3 recipes from a cookbook of the month and then have the dinner you cooked and get a signed copy of the cookbook to take home. I took one on ice cream making and that’s how I left with this equipment. That’s also how I ended up getting into canning too. But both products the canning pot and the ice cream maker are top notch and have lasted years and years.

The key to having a successful batch of ice cream is temperature. You do not want to scramble the eggs so it’s very important to temper the eggs by whisking constantly and adding a little bit of the heated liquid at a time. By doing this you slowly bring the eggs up to temp by not creating scrambled egg. Nobody likes scrambled eggs in their ice cream.

When you are ready to make your ice cream make sure that the frozen vessel is completely frozen. I made my first round and it was just a little bit loose still and I ended up putting everything back into the fridge and freezer and starting over. Cold batter and frozen container will bring you victory. PS would be really good with this drizzled over top.

Here is what you need:

2 cups of 2% Milk
1 cup of heavy Cream
1.5 Ounces of Fresh Mint leaves, roughly chopped
5 egg yolks
3/4 cup of sugar

1. Combine milk and cream in a saucepan over low heat. Add mint leaves to cream mixture and heat until it just starts to simmer. Remove from heat and cover. Let rest an hour or two. You want all that minty goodness to soak into the cream.
2. Strain the milk through a sieve into a bowl and scrape to release as much oil as possible before discarding the leaves. In a separate bowl whisk egg yolks and sugar. Discard the egg whites (or use for egg white omelet etc)
3. Place the milk mixture back into the saucepan and bring to a simmer, remove from heat before it boils and slowly pour a dabble of the mixture in to the egg yolks whisking constantly. Once the first bit is mixed in slowly pour the mix into the eggs while continuously whisking the eggs until the milk is totally combined in to the egg yolks.
4. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan again, put over low heat and stir constantly until the sauce thickens to coat a wood spoon.
5. Pour mixture through sieve again, cover and place in the fridge until it’s completely cooled. I ended up just leaving mine in overnight.
6. Follow the manufacturers instructions for your ice cream maker. For mine it takes about 17 minutes to churn. Place into a freezer safe bowl ( I found these at sur la table and they work awesome). Freeze 4-5 hours and serve!

recipe adapted from: A beautiful Plate