Sometimes the oldies are the best! I've got to admit I didn't much fancy making mint choc chip ice cream.
I don't know if it's bad experiences making other mint ice creams, the fact I'm always more keen on making flavours that I haven't tied before, or just that I'd forgotten how good it can taste.
But, anyway, it was the kids that pestered me into it. And I'm glad they did because it was a real winner. Everyone loved it. Which is not always the case with my experiments!
The secret is obviously getting the mint right. Spearmint which is usually the only mint we can find in supermarkets (at least where I live) is just not good enough. It's best suited to savoury dishes and when I've used it in ice cream before it's never gone down well, with the kids at least.
What we need is Peppermint. Luckily I've been growing two types of Peppermint on the terrace. Regular and Chocolate Peppermint.
Either would work well in this recipe, but this time I used the Chocolate variety. If you can't get fresh Peppermint then I think a Peppermint oil would be fine too. Just add a few drops to taste.
As for the chocolate, I used a 70% Cocoa Lindt Dark. And I probably used a bit too much to be honest. It just didn't look that much when it was melted, so I kept adding a bit more!
In the end I think I added 75 g but it would probably be fine with 50 g.
The great thing about drizzling the chocolate in at the end of the churning (like the Italians do with Stracciatella) is that it gets broken up into such small flakes that it doesn't really get chalky as it would it bigger chips.
It's also a lot of fun, watching the melted chocolate solidify as it hits the cold ice cream!
Mint Choc Chip Ice Cream
Ingredients
- 300 grams Milk 3.5 - 4% fat, chilled
- 200 grams Whipping / Heavy Cream 32 - 40% fat, chilled
- 50 grams Granulated Sugar
- 60 grams Condensed Milk
- 40 grams Skimmed Milk Powder
- 1.5 grams Ice Cream Stabilizer I used Locus Bean Gum
- 5 grams Chocolate Peppermint Leaves
- 75 grams Dark Chocolate I used 70% Coca
Instructions
- Thoroughly mix the Stabilizer, the Granulated Sugar and Skimmed Milk Powder together in a bowl. Then add these dry ingredients to the Milk, Cream and Condensed Milk in a saucepan.
- Place the saucepan over a medium heat, and stirring all the time, bring the mixture to the temperature at which the Stabilizer activates. For Locust Bean Gum that's 80°C (176°F).
- Take the saucepan off the heat, add the Mint Leaves and give them a good mix. Leave to cool.
- Once the mixture has cooled to room temperature, pour it into a container with a lid and place it in the fridge.
- You'll need to leave the mixture in the fridge until the Mint Leaves adequately flavours the mixture. For me this took somewhere between 2 and 3 hours. Keep tasting it until you get the flavour you want.
- Meanwhile, melt the chocolate in a bowl placed in a pan of gently heated water.
- Churn the ice cream in your ice cream maker until it has the consistency of whipped cream. This will usually take between 15 and 30 minutes.
- When it looks ready, dribble the melted chocolate onto the ice cream as it continues to churn in the machine. The spinning dasher will break the chocolate up and mix it into the ice cream.
- Once all the chocolate is well mixed into the ice cream, you can transfer the ice cream from the machine to a plastic freezer box and freeze for at least an hour.
- After an hour or two it should firmer but still easy to scoop. If you leave it longer and it's too hard to scoop, leave it in the fridge for a while to soften slightly
