The Ice Cream Chronicles: Backyard Mint
The winner of the poll at the time that I sat down to make ice cream was Mint with Fudge Stripes. I had determined that the flavor of my heart was Buttermint, however, and took myself to the Whole Foods to get the remaining ingredients.
Where I was foiled, as they did not have the Frontier Naturals butter flavoring required. Bastards.
So I made mint instead.
Now, the recipe for the mint ice cream that I had came from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home. Jeni has a ice cream shop in Ohio somewhere, and she wrote this book about making artisianal ice creams at home. It's pretty interesting and the flavors are often very foodie. I'm not going to make the goat cheese anytime soon, let's just say, but I can see where it might go in a formal meal.
There's several ways of making cream-based ice creams, and most of the good recipes I've found involve egg custards. This is not a problem for me, because I have a great source for absolutely excellent orange-yolked beauties. This is the kind of ice cream that I made last time with the cinnamon. Some folks find egg custards a challenge to make, but I've always done well with them, because I am weird like that. Also, you need a good copper bottomed pan.
But bizarrely (to me), Jeni does not like egg custard ice creams.
At all.
So she uses a completely different ice cream base that she invented herself. It's a bit different from the rest of the recipes I've read. It has cream, milk, sugar, and then for thickeners/de-icers, it uses: cornstarch, cream cheese, and corn syrup.
She says that her base has a more pure dairy flavor, and I would have to say that this is true. However, my mom doesn't always do well with corn syrup, so I left that out. Corn syrup as in Karo, not the food additive high fructose variety. Anyway.
So what you do for the mint is:
You cook milk, sugar, and cream to a hard boil. Yes, a hard boil. Then you add a cornstarch-milk slurry, stir, cook until thick. Then you whip the hot milk into the cream cheese (in a bowl) until it's well blended. While it's still hot, you add a large amount of fresh, muddled mint (basically, you bruise the mint with your fingers by tearing and crushing it, not by chopping, to release the oils).
Then you allow the base to cool and rest in the frig for at least four hours, preferably overnight, then you strain out the mint and put it in the ice cream maker.
First of all, straining the base was a joke. I have a good quality fine mesh strainer and the thickened base just kind of sat there, hanging out in the strainer, and looking cheekily at me, refusing to strain through. So I picked out the big bits of mint and said to hell with it and dumped it all in.
That was a good call, as small pieces of mint did not seem to deter the overall texture. However, the mint had darkened with the hot liquid. Cooking, basically. Next time, I would allow the base to cool before adding the mint.
I had set aside a nice chunk of Green & Black dark chocolate for adding in, and it was nicely melted but cool, and all set to drizzle in at the last two minutes, as per the directions in the recipe for add ins.
What Jeni's recipe did not say, and which I wish it had said, was that freezing the frig-level-cold mint base takes about half as much time as normal bases do. So I was sipping my tea and then the ice cream maker went thunk-stop after only ten minutes. Oops. So much for the stripy add in. I added a bit with a spoon, but it wasn't quite the same. Then you put the ice cream in the freezer to fully harden.
Yes, yes, that's all very well, I can hear you say. Now how did it taste?
Pretty good.
Delicious, actually.
The taste itself was quite good. I used a bit less sugar than called for, and the mint came through strongly. I used my own front yard mint, since it's hoofing out of its pot and may, I suspect, have designs on eating the neighbor's dogs. The taste is very fresh mint, which has a green undertone and a rawness to it that essential flavoring oils lack. Herby and wild, almost woody.
It's very much a milk-dairy flavor. Without the eggs, the milk comes through strongly. However, I do feel that this base has a slightly cooked milk flavor, which some people might not care for. Not a strong one, but there. The texture is a little odd, probably because I didn't use the corn syrup, and I increased the cream a bit. I also used Philly instead of the recommended organic no additive brand. Overall, this ice cream has a very....complicated, almost raw flavor to it that is difficult to describe, but is quite wonderful.
There's a certain kind of cooking which is difficult to find, and usually either outrageously expensive or dirt-cheap-to-free, which uses such fresh foods that you can almost taste the whiff of dirt. The flavors are complicated, seasonal, not at all standardized, and very unapologetic. Last time I had that kind of food outside my own kitchen was in Paris.
That's the sort of flavor this ice cream had.
Good stuff.
Where I was foiled, as they did not have the Frontier Naturals butter flavoring required. Bastards.
So I made mint instead.
Now, the recipe for the mint ice cream that I had came from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home. Jeni has a ice cream shop in Ohio somewhere, and she wrote this book about making artisianal ice creams at home. It's pretty interesting and the flavors are often very foodie. I'm not going to make the goat cheese anytime soon, let's just say, but I can see where it might go in a formal meal.
There's several ways of making cream-based ice creams, and most of the good recipes I've found involve egg custards. This is not a problem for me, because I have a great source for absolutely excellent orange-yolked beauties. This is the kind of ice cream that I made last time with the cinnamon. Some folks find egg custards a challenge to make, but I've always done well with them, because I am weird like that. Also, you need a good copper bottomed pan.
But bizarrely (to me), Jeni does not like egg custard ice creams.
At all.
So she uses a completely different ice cream base that she invented herself. It's a bit different from the rest of the recipes I've read. It has cream, milk, sugar, and then for thickeners/de-icers, it uses: cornstarch, cream cheese, and corn syrup.
She says that her base has a more pure dairy flavor, and I would have to say that this is true. However, my mom doesn't always do well with corn syrup, so I left that out. Corn syrup as in Karo, not the food additive high fructose variety. Anyway.
So what you do for the mint is:
You cook milk, sugar, and cream to a hard boil. Yes, a hard boil. Then you add a cornstarch-milk slurry, stir, cook until thick. Then you whip the hot milk into the cream cheese (in a bowl) until it's well blended. While it's still hot, you add a large amount of fresh, muddled mint (basically, you bruise the mint with your fingers by tearing and crushing it, not by chopping, to release the oils).
Then you allow the base to cool and rest in the frig for at least four hours, preferably overnight, then you strain out the mint and put it in the ice cream maker.
First of all, straining the base was a joke. I have a good quality fine mesh strainer and the thickened base just kind of sat there, hanging out in the strainer, and looking cheekily at me, refusing to strain through. So I picked out the big bits of mint and said to hell with it and dumped it all in.
That was a good call, as small pieces of mint did not seem to deter the overall texture. However, the mint had darkened with the hot liquid. Cooking, basically. Next time, I would allow the base to cool before adding the mint.
I had set aside a nice chunk of Green & Black dark chocolate for adding in, and it was nicely melted but cool, and all set to drizzle in at the last two minutes, as per the directions in the recipe for add ins.
What Jeni's recipe did not say, and which I wish it had said, was that freezing the frig-level-cold mint base takes about half as much time as normal bases do. So I was sipping my tea and then the ice cream maker went thunk-stop after only ten minutes. Oops. So much for the stripy add in. I added a bit with a spoon, but it wasn't quite the same. Then you put the ice cream in the freezer to fully harden.
Yes, yes, that's all very well, I can hear you say. Now how did it taste?
Pretty good.
Delicious, actually.
The taste itself was quite good. I used a bit less sugar than called for, and the mint came through strongly. I used my own front yard mint, since it's hoofing out of its pot and may, I suspect, have designs on eating the neighbor's dogs. The taste is very fresh mint, which has a green undertone and a rawness to it that essential flavoring oils lack. Herby and wild, almost woody.
It's very much a milk-dairy flavor. Without the eggs, the milk comes through strongly. However, I do feel that this base has a slightly cooked milk flavor, which some people might not care for. Not a strong one, but there. The texture is a little odd, probably because I didn't use the corn syrup, and I increased the cream a bit. I also used Philly instead of the recommended organic no additive brand. Overall, this ice cream has a very....complicated, almost raw flavor to it that is difficult to describe, but is quite wonderful.
There's a certain kind of cooking which is difficult to find, and usually either outrageously expensive or dirt-cheap-to-free, which uses such fresh foods that you can almost taste the whiff of dirt. The flavors are complicated, seasonal, not at all standardized, and very unapologetic. Last time I had that kind of food outside my own kitchen was in Paris.
That's the sort of flavor this ice cream had.
Good stuff.