Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
Mint Chip ice cream is the perfect culinary item to highlight the difference between fresh peppermint and spearmint.
Mint Chip Ice Cream Recipe
There are few herbs which give the connotation of “fresh” like mint does. A vibrant, bright, opening of the senses. As most home gardeners will know, there is hardly only one kind of mint. For culinary use, it is easiest to break it down to two main types, spearmint and peppermint, then allow the derivatives flow from there.
Spearmint will be the most common mint directly eaten. A bit more mellow, it imparts that beautifully fresh flavor without blowing open the sinuses with an overly bright impression. Garden Peas or Roasted Carrots with Mint – spearmint. Mint clustered in billowing piles served alongside Vietnamese cuisine – spearmint. For those mojitos, grab the spearmint. For our garden, 75% of the mint we grow is spearmint. It gets used incessantly in our cooking, especially with Vietnamese dishes being our culinary staple.
Then there is peppermint. Bright, full of life and freshness, but often overpowering when eaten straight. Think – mint chip ice cream or candy canes. That is the flavor of peppermint. It was with mint chip ice cream in mind which drove us to dedicate a plot to this sinus clearing bite of freshness.
In researching for this recipe, one doesn’t have to look any further than the cult-favorite ice cream bible, David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop. Nearly any internet savvy ice cream churners will swoon praises of David’s scream and squeal inducer of a book. This is nearly always the first and last book we grab for frozen delicacies and for our mint chocolate chip ice cream was as true as ever.
By combining his recipe with the Stracciatella instructions, we had the perfect results. First infusing the peppermint into the milk and sugar until it was a beautiful “emerald” green. Then after mixing, straining, chilling and churning everything together; melted chocolate is slowly drizzled in, instantly hardening then breaking up into perfect “chips.” Our weed-like peppermint has no chance of overgrowing now. This mint chocolate chip ice cream has become a household staple.
-Todd
Here’s some great chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. Make a ice cream sandwich!
Mint Chip Ice Cream Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup Milk (240ml)
- 1/2 cup Sugar (100g)
- 1 1/2 cups Heavy Cream (360ml)
- pinch Kosher Salt or Sea Salt
- 2 cups lightly packed fresh Peppermint Leaves (80g) or leaves from 20 (6-inch / 15-cm) stems
- 3 large Egg Yolks
- 4 ounces Dark Chocolate (1/4 lb. or 113g) , finely chopped (do not use choc. chips)
Instructions
- Combine the milk, sugar, heavy cream, and salt in a saucepan and gently warm until bathwater warm. Squeeze mint leaves in your hands to help release the oils a bit and add to warm milk mixture. Remove pan from heat, cover, and set aside for 30 minutes-2 hours (depending on how minty you'd like the ice cream to be.)
- Strain out and discard the mint leaves (we'll often give the mint leaves another squeeze over the milk mixture to extract as much of the delicious minty-ness you can out of them).
- Gently re-warm the minted milk/cream mixture, and in a separate medium bowl whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the mint mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly. Pour this mixture back into the saucepan and return to the heat.
- Heat over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and coats the back of the spoon. Pour the mixture through a fine mesh strainer into a medium bowl. Place the bowl in an ice bath and stir occasionally to cool.
- Cover with plastic wrap and chill the mixture in the refrigerator until fully chilled.
- After mint ice cream mixture is fully chilled in the fridge, begin gently melting dark chocolate in a bain marie (a bowl over a saucepan with simmering water).
- Begin churning ice cream in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions. When the ice cream is nearly finished freezing in the ice cream maker, slowly drizzle the melted chocolate into the ice cream, trying to avoid pouring onto the paddle or dasher. If the chocolate clings to the paddle (dasher) stop the ice cream maker and use a spatula or spoon to break up any chunks. Put mint chip ice cream in freezer to finish setting the ice cream if necessary.
It’s my favorite ice cream flavor ever and David’s recipe is awesome. I may have to come buy a bunch of peppermint off of you when we get to LA just to be able to make it (I’ve always had a hard time finding fresh peppermint to make this ice cream, though my hips are probably grateful).
My son loves mint chip ice cream. We will be making this for sure.
Love mint ice cream – in fact I love mint anything but I keep my plant corralled in a large bottomless pot in my garden. Even then, it still makes frequent escapes!
First of all, beautiful photos. What did you use for the backdrop in the first photo? Is that a tablecloth or cheesecloth-like texture?
Seconds, I love that this ice cream uses fresh mint rather than mint extract.
i, too, had to make this recipe this summer. what a luscious, decadent dessert.
your photos are beautiful.
Oh gosh, now our diet is completely and totally doomed. Mint chocolate chip ice cream is our favorite…and with the drizzling of the chocolate and these mouth-watering pictures we just have to make and consume.
You guys have made such a beautiful Mint Chip Ice Cream….David’s book is drool worthy in very way! Thankfully The Perfect Scoop is in my cookbook collection as well. Thanks for clarifying the fine points of spearmint vs. peppermint with us.
Probably one of my all time favorite ice creams but I think I’ve only got spearmint growing in my garden and it doesn’t sound like it’s a good alternative?
It won’t have as bright of a mint flavor but you may still love it. Phoo-D mentions it reminded her of spearmint gum (to her chagrin – not quite what she was anticipating.) Give it a shot and see what you think.
Wow, that looks so refreshing! I don’t know why I never thought of ice cream as a way to use all the mint we have.
I’m in awe of your beautiful photos, as usual. It’s “cooled down” to the 90s finally in DC, but still the perfect humid heat for a refreshing treat such as this.
What a delicious sounding ice cream. That would be great for the hot, muggy Pittsburgh summer! If only I had an ice cream maker….mmm….
Holy cow, that’s a beautiful shot! Remember all of the ice cream questions/conundrums at Food and Light? Ice cream is such a dirty dog to photograph, but y’all make it look easy. Gorgeous. Minx #1 is a great lover of mint chip–I’ll have to break out this recipe for her this weekend.
I made the mistake of churning a spearmint chocolate chip ice cream this winter. Hoo boy was that ever a strange flavor! Bubblegum in a bowl. I need to find some peppermint and try to redeem myself. Made right mint chocolate chip is one of my favorite ice cream flavors. I love how you shot the cones!
Is it crazy that at 6:54am I want to go make some ice cream. The freezer bowl is chilled and ready to go.
I desperately need an ice cream maker!
I love that mint chocolate chip ice cream recipe! I blogged about it last summer, and think it’s time to make some more. Gorgeous photos- I absolutely love the first one of the ice cream cones!