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