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Abby's Mint Ice Cream

The summer of 2022 Abby picked-out a spearmint plant at Home Depot that she wanted to grow. With mint's propensity to spread, I forbade her from planting in anything other than a pot on the deck. The plant grew quite well (May and June were wet and more spring-like than has become usual) and produced many leaves: the question became, what do we do with those delicious leaves?

Makes about 1.5 quarts
ingredients:

  • 2 cup freshly-picked mint leaves
  • 2 cup heavy cream
  • 2 cup half-and-half
  • ½ cup milk (we used 1%)
  • 1 ¼ cup granulated sugar
  • 1 tbsp vanilla
  • ½ cup mini chocolate chips
  1. Place the mint leaves and heavy cream in a sauce pot over medium-low heat. Stir often. Once the cream begins to simmer, turn off the heat. Steep the mint leaves in the cream for at least one hour.
  2. Strain the leaves from the cream, pressing the leaves to ensure all liquid (and flavor!) is recovered.
  3. Add the half-and-half, milk, and sugar to the minted cream. Stir until the sugar is completely dissolved — you may have to return the mixture to medium-low heat briefly.
  4. Add the vanilla and transfer the mixture to a refrigerated container for at least 8 hours.
  5. Churn the ice cream base. When nearly done, add the chocolate chips and ensure they are uniformly spread through the ice cream.
  6. Transfer the ice cream to containers and move it to the freezer for at least 8 hours to firm-up.
Written by Jeff Frey on Wednesday August 10, 2022
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