Culinary Explorer
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Garden Mint Chip Ice Cream
Created by Chef Ally
Fresh garden mint steeped in cream until it tastes like summer itself, churned smooth and studded with dark chocolate that shatters with every bite. This is what mint ice cream was always meant to be.
Forget everything you know about mint chip ice cream. Those neon-green scoops flavored with extract have nothing to do with the real thing. Fresh mint steeped in cream is a revelation: bright and herbaceous, tasting of the plant itself rather than toothpaste.
The technique could not be simpler. You warm cream with bruised mint leaves, let them steep until the dairy takes on that pale green tint and unmistakable fragrance, then strain and churn. The mint does the work. Your job is to get out of the way.
I use dark chocolate here, not the waxy chips of commercial ice cream. Good chocolate, chopped fine, becomes those shattering shards that make each bite interesting. The bitterness plays against the sweet cream and cool mint in a way that milk chocolate never could.
This is garden-to-table eating at its simplest. If you grow mint, you likely have more than you know what to do with. Here is one perfect use for it.
Ingredients
fresh mint leaves and tender stems
Quantity
2 cups packed (about 2 large bunches)
heavy cream
Quantity
2 cups
whole milk
Quantity
1 cup
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| fresh mint leaves and tender stems | 2 cups packed (about 2 large bunches) |
| heavy cream | 2 cups |
| whole milk | 1 cup |
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