Fresh Mint Ice Cream

We got a bunch of mint growing wild by our local creek so I made some Fresh Mint ice cream, another great recipe from David Lebovitz's book The Perfect Scoop. I was never really a fan of mint chocolate chip ice cream although it's one of Sage's favorite. So I wasn't quite sure how this would turn out, but I was very pleasantly surprised. Wow, it tasted REALLY, REALLY GOOD! Very mild, yet creamy and just MMMMM. ^_^ The recipe calls for two cups of lightly packed mint, which is a whole lotta mint. If I didn't have access to a lot of mint, I don't think I'd buy that much mint to make this. It'd be some really expensive ice cream!



Fresh Mint Ice Cream- makes about 1 quart (1 liter) -




Ingredients







1 cup (250 ml) whole milk
3/4 cup (150 g) sugar
2 cups (500 ml) heavy cream
Pinch of salt
2 cups (80 g) lightly packed fresh mint leaves
5 large egg yolks




Procedure







1. Warm the milk, sugar, 1 cup (250 ml) of the cream, and salt in a small saucepan. Add the mint leaves and stir until they're immersed in the liquid. Cover, remove from the heat, and let steep at room temperature for 1 hour.




2. Strain the mint-infused mixture through a mesh strainer into a medium saucepan (the milk will be a lovely shade of emerald). Press on the mint leaves to extract as much of the flavor as possible, then discard the mint leaves. Pour the remaining 1 cup (250 ml) heavy cream into a large bowl and set the strainer on top.




3. Rewarm the mint-infused mixture. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm mint liquid into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.




4. Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream. Stir until cool over an ice bath.




5. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator. Then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.