The thing about this mint ice cream is that it’s not flavored with extract. Instead, I steeped some mint leaves in the milk and let that flavor the custard. Delicious! Then, I added some chopped up thin mints to the batter during the last few minutes of freezing. Wow! What a great minty combination! You get that bright fresh mint flavor from the ice cream, and then the chewy and pepperminty thin mint bite a little while afterwards. This is a great refreshing summer ice cream.
You know what would make it even better? Using this as a filling for ice cream sandwiches using really soft chocolate chocolate chip cookies! Hmm…I just might have to try that.
Okay, so when I made this ice cream I thought that maybe the fresh mint would give it a nice natural green color. It didn’t (though maybe sometimes it does, depending on the mint?) so I added just a splash of food coloring – you don’t have to do that, but there’s something fun about eating green mint ice cream!
Fresh Mint Ice Cream (with Homemade Thin Mints), adapted from Thomas Keller:
Makes about 1 quart
Ingredients:
- 2 cups whole milk
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 1/2 ounce (about 1/2 cup loosely packed) mint leaves – I used a little more
- 1 1/3 cups sugar
- 10 large egg yolks
- 10 thin mint cookies, chopped into small pieces
Directions:
1. Add the milk and cream to a medium saucepan. Add the mint and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Remove from heat and let sit at room temperature for 20 minutes (to infuse the mint flavor).
2. Strain the milk through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl or clean saucepan (if into a bowl, add back into same saucepan).
3. Add 2/3 cup of the sugar and heat over medium high until just below simmering, whisking every once in a while to dissolve the sugar.
4. In a medium bowl, whisk in the remaining 2/3 cup of the sugar and the egg yolks until thickened and pale.
5. While whisking, slowly add about 1/2 cup of the hot milk into the yolks, then whisk in the remaining milk mixture.
6. Strain the mixture into a clean saucepan or bowl.
7. Cook the custard over medium heat, whisking, until it coats the back of a spoon.
8. Set the bowl in an ice bath or let cool in the fridge.
9. Freeze in an ice cream maker.
10. During the last 10 minutes of freezing, add the chopped cookies.
11. Pour into quart container and place in freezer to harden.
