Week Thirty-Three: Herbal

My most requested ice cream is mint ice cream. I’d barely got my first ice cream machine and people were asking for mint ice cream. No one requests chestnut ice cream or brown bread ice cream, it’s always, “When are you making mint? Mint choc chip?” I have made it with mint extract but as readers here will know, I like using fresh ingredients not extracts so these were just made to satisfy people’s requests but didn’t really fit in with my ice cream portfolio (which isn’t to say they weren’t nice, though.) Herbal week was made for mint ice cream.

The problem with mint is, we are used to peppermint. I did purchase some peppermint plants ages ago but they sadly succumbed to my usual black thumb - in my defence they arrived a week earlier than they were expected to, whilst I was away from home, and so they were stuck in the box for several days. Some cuttings from the original plants look promising but not in the short term. So I ordered mint from the supermarket and got regular garden mint. I decided to make this in a cream base rather than confuse the mint taste with the custard taste.

Mint ice cream

Ingredients

I’m making 1000g of mixture

550g single (19% butterfat) cream (55%)
250g whipping (39% butterfat) cream (25%)
200g caster sugar (20%)

Mint leaves - I used 60g which was 6% but that’s really only based on that’s how much a packet of mint leaves from my local supermarket weighed, it’s not necessarily the ideal amount and you can experiment

Instructions

1. Put the creams and mint leaves into a blender, and blend well

2. Transfer cream mint mixture to a bowl and whisk slowly whilst adding the sugar (I used a stand mixer)

3. Allow to infuse whilst chilling for several hours, preferably overnight

4. Just prior to churning, rewhisk and then pass mixture through a sieve

5. Churn according to your ice cream machine’s instructions

6. Once ice cream is at a soft serve texture, put into a container and freeze for at least four hours, preferably overnight


Sometimes in this process, I find a really great ice cream. Sometimes I learn what not to do. This was the latter. That’s not to say it tastes bad - it doesn’t, it has a spearmint taste which is unusual when you’re used to sharp peppermint but I wouldn’t say it’s bad, it tastes real and whilst I do still want to use my peppermint plants, I wouldn’t rule out more garden mint ice cream. It’s more the process that didn’t work; the blender pulverised the mint too well, a significant amount of it made it through the sieve (and my sieves are fine mesh) and into the ice cream which I don’t like, some people do and that’s fine if you do. It’s the same blender I used on the rose petals which didn’t chop up so finely and were all strained out, but there you go - different plants, different parts of the plant. I think I’d chop future mint leaves up just to get them releasing flavour and then stir them into simmering cream to get the heat to work on them too. 

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