It used to drive me mad that, whenever my husband and I would go out for dinner, no matter how fancy or lowbrow the place, he would always ignore the puddings on offer in favor of a single scoop of ice cream. He can overlook crème brûlées, lemon meringue tarts, sticky toffee puddings — even eschew a cheese plate — if ice cream is a possibility. It just always seemed quite a boring choice to me — you can keep a tub of ice cream in your own freezer, or maybe get a cone on the beach. Why would you plump for something so simple (so boring!) when there were so many more exciting options?
Of course, as is so often the case, I was wrong. Ice cream is the opposite of boring: it’s a canvas for creativity, a vehicle for flavor and can tell you a lot about a cook. That possibility to experiment, to play, to capture is exciting. The custard base is able to take on the subtlest of flavors and lock them into the ice cream: citrus, whole or crushed spices, tea leaves or coffee beans, soft, grassy herbs, rich, even booze. It’s a way to capture and preserve seasonal produce — elderflower, damson, strawberries — at their height, their most luscious and fragrant. Ice cream began to fascinate me: everything was fair game when it came to flavoring. I got to a point where I was just dunking things in cream, churning it and seeing what stuck: popcorn, cornflakes, hot cross buns, calvados.
Here I find myself returning to a classic of the ice cream genre — but, taking my cues from the power of infusion, it has a small twist. Mint chocolate chip is my ice cream-loving husband’s top favorite — and given that he’s been banging the ice cream drum long before I became hooked, it’s about time he got his just desserts. To me, there’s something very nostalgic about mint chocolate chip ice cream — it was about as exotic as supermarket ice cream got when I was a kid. Its bright green color was irresistible.
Instead of the classic peppermint extract used as flavoring, I’ve taken a big bunch of fresh mint and let that steep in the milk and cream for at least 30 minutes. The flavor is slightly different: fresher, greener, herbier. It has more zip, it’s more interesting, but still delivers that old-fashioned minty hit you expect. Don’t be tempted to sub the dark chocolate for milk, it needs the very slight bitterness of the dark chocolate against the sweet ice cream.
Of course, you don’t need to use food coloring, but that nostalgia gets the better of me — and I can’t resist turning the custard a pale sea-foam green. Although, as it happens, when mint ice cream originated in the American South around the time of the Civil War, it was habitually colored pink, to imitate peppermint candies, which were pink and white striped.
As always with ice cream, check your ice cream maker instructions: many will require you to freeze the canister for several hours before churning. If you don’t have an ice cream maker, you can still make ice cream: decant the cold custard into a shallow freezer-safe container and then freeze for 30 minutes, before thoroughly breaking up any ice crystals that have formed with a whisk. Freeze for another 30 minutes and then whisk again: repeat until the ice cream is firm and smooth.
Mint chocolate chip ice cream
Makes: just over a pint of ice cream
Takes: one hour, plus chilling
Bakes: no time at all
1 oz fresh mint
10½ oz double cream
10 fl oz whole milk
5⅓ oz caster sugar
4 egg yolks
A few drops of green food dye (optional)
3½ oz dark chocolate, chopped into small chunks
- Check your ice cream maker instructions: you may need to freeze the canister for at least four hours
- Pour the double cream and whole milk into a large pan over a low heat. Slap the mint (this helps release the oils), add it to the pan and bring up to a simmer, then remove from the heat and leave to stand and infuse for 30 minutes
- Strain the mint from the cream and discard. Return the infused cream to the pan and bring up to a simmer
- Whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until pale. Stream about a third of the hot cream into the whisked yolks and sugar, whisking to combine. Return the combined mixture to the pan and cook gently, stirring and scraping the base of the pan constantly, until the custard thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. Run your finger down the spoon: when cooked, the custard mixture shouldn’t rush back to fill in the channel your finger created
- Strain the cooked custard through a sieve into a jug and cover with saran wrap, directly touching the surface of the custard. Leave to cool completely overnight in the fridge
- If you’d like to use green food dye, add it slowly to your chilled custard, stirring gently to distribute it evenly
- Churn the ice cream according to your manufacturer’s instructions. Just before you finish churning, add the chopped dark chocolate and stir to distribute. Decant the churned ice cream into a freezer-safe container and freeze until firm
This article was originally published on Spectator Life.
