Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Green Tea and Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

This is a flavor I made up one day. The tea ingredient was inspired from the truffles I made last week. The idea of infusing ice cream with tea sounded promising. I gave it a try.

Mint Chocolate Chip is one of my favorite ice cream flavors. I was excited to make this flavor but wanted a new twist on it. I love green tea and thought that it would be a great flavor combination with mint and chocolate. The combination was a success. I really like it.

I was concerned about the chocolate and how it would be added into the ice cream. I didn't want the chips too large to overpower the other delicate flavors. I wanted it to be in small pieces and to mix thoroughly into the ice cream. I tried traditional chips in different sizes. The chips all seemed to be too large so I tried to chop them by hand. I tried placing the chips thorough a food processor. Nothing turned out right. I wasn't satisfied until I bought a chocolate bar and shaved the chocolate with a knife. The shaved chocolate pieces are a perfect size once they are mixed through the ice cream maker.

There were some other questions I wanted to solve. How much mint is too much? Would the green tea make the ice cream green enough or did I need to add food color?

The green tea I had selected had mint in it. It was my thought that this would be my mint flavoring and maybe my food coloring. The tea added a nice mint flavor but not a strong enough mint flavor for the 2-Quart recipe. I needed to add a teaspoon of peppermint extract to enhance the flavor.

The green tea made the milk green but not green enough. I added two drops of green food color. I wanted the color to have a strong hint of green but not to be too GREEN. Two drops is the perfect amount for the color I wanted.

Green Tea and Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream:

1 Cup Cold Whole Milk
1/4 Cup Mint Green Tea (loose tea leaves)
3/4 Cup Sugar
2 Cups Cold Heavy Cream
1 Teaspoon Peppermint Extract
4 Ounces Bittersweet Chocolate (shaved into pieces and slightly chopped)
2 Drops Green Food Coloring

Place milk into sauce pan and add the 1/4 Cup green tea leaves. Bring to simmer. Do not boil. Turn off heat and allow mixture to set for 2-3 minutes.

Put the sugar into a medium sized bowl. Strain the milk over the sugar removing the tea leaves from the milk.

Use a hand mixer and combine the milk and sugar until the sugar is dissolved, about 2 minutes. Place this mixture into a freezer bowl. Add cream. Turn machine on and add extract and 2 drops of coloring.

While ice cream is cooking, shave and chop chocolate into uneven pieces to add later to mixture. I prefer bittersweet chocolate but you may wish to try semi-sweet.

Cook until thickened, about 25-30 minutes. Add chocolate during the last 5 minutes of mixing. Scrape the final mixture in a closed, air tight container and freeze for atleast 3-4 hours before serving.

-Fer

9 Comments:

Blogger gabrielle said...

seems like it would be better with white chocolate chips & sans food coloring

9:42 PM  
Blogger Fer said...

I am not a huge fan of white chocolate. I usually stick with the "real" stuff! I also like that the brown chocolate adds a look of texture.

I had a problem at first with adding the "color". The ice cream would taste just as good not adding it...but call it a case of nostalgia,I just wanted the my ice cream to be green!

10:03 PM  
Blogger Brilynn said...

I love ice cream, I've been making quite a bit lately. I've tried adding chai to chocolate, but would like to try more tea flavourings. Your green tea sounds delicious!

7:42 AM  
Blogger Fer said...

Thanks Brilynn for your comment. Ice cream is so fun to make. The possibilities are endless!!

11:39 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Have you tried using powdered tea (such as matcha) in this recipe? I would imagine that it would impart a more green color and a more intense flavor. I don't know any matcha that comes pre-flavored, so you'd have to add the mint seperately.

6:31 PM  
Blogger Fer said...

David-
I have not tried a powdered tea. I would prefer to get a natural color green from one of the ingredients. It hasn't worked out for me yet. I will give the matcha a try. Thanks for the suggestion! I am so into making ice cream lately. It will be fun to try it!

-Fer

10:28 PM  
Blogger Eva P. said...

You should definetely go for matcha - it will give you a nice and natural green color, no need for food colors.
1 tsb is enough - check out:
http://evakook.blogspot.com/2008/02/rohelise-tee-jtis.html
(sorry, the recipie not in English).

1:05 PM  
Blogger Kate said...

Matcha tea is great as an ice cream flavor. Powdered sencha is less expensive.

4:57 AM  
Blogger Dr.Gray said...

I am going to agree with the matcha. The color and flavor are much stronger/brighter than you will get with infused tea. Also be careful of using flavored teas they tend to be old, hence why they need to be flavored with artificial flavorings.

4:26 PM  

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