Fresh Mint Chip Ice Cream
A cooling stracciatella-like ice cream to beat the heat. And turning 40.
I aspire to send out this newsletter on Saturday or Sunday. But it’s Monday, and I don’t regret a thing. On Saturday, it was my 3+5+22+3+7th birthday, and I had a lovely little celebration. My parents and in-laws stayed with us. I baked an apricot, rainier cherry, and amaretto crostata (That recipe will be in my book!) and churned up three batches of ice cream.
But I didn’t want to make my own birthday cake. I asked the incredibly talented pastry artist and entrepreneur Justin Lerias of Del Sur Bakery to make a cake for me, and he kindly obliged. The only prompt I gave him was that I love a princess cake. This cake was a masterpiece of a milk sponge, corn curd, local strawberry ripple, cornflake crunch, and salted whipped cream, covered in marzipan and decorated with stunning buttercream swirls, strawberries, and botanicals. Thank you for the cake, Justin!
I’m working on a longer post about Justin’s baking, but you can follow him on Instagram. He typically sells his pastries at Chicago’s Side Practice Coffee and plans to open his first brick-and-mortar shop soon! (Oh, and he’s also a very talented ceramicist. Some people just excel at everything.)
Thanks to all of my friends and family who came for the little party and to everyone who wished me well on the big day. I could complain about my age, but I feel quite the opposite—like I’m entering a new era of awesome.
On to the recipe!
It's been in the mid-90s here in Chicago, even before summer officially arrived. I've been holding off on major baking projects or tackling them early in the morning. Plus, my oven started struggling to heat up, so I’m giving it a short respite. That means It's time to make ice cream.
Mint Chip AKA Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream was my regular order at the old-school ice cream parlor in the town where I grew up. The bright green ice cream and hard, waxy shards of chocolate hit the spot. As a kid, I despised vanilla ice cream. "Too plain!" I'd exclaim. (I’ve always held strong opinions about food.) I required chocolate in my ice cream. Whenever I went to Dairy Queen and ordered a Reese's Cup blizzard, I demanded that they make it with chocolate ice cream as the base instead of the typical vanilla. Some Dairy Queen locations refused my demands. Luckily, the location closest to home got with the program.
But mint chip always hits the spot in the summer. The flavor and temperature cool you off while providing your daily dose of chocolate.
Need some ice cream-making tips and tools? I wrote about that last year.
This recipe combines a super-easy ice cream base from Salt & Straw's ice cream book with the tried-and-tested infusion method from Serious Eats. I prefer this base because its lower fat content and lack of eggs lets the mint flavor shine through. Plus, it's quicker to make.
Fresh mint provides a more complex version of this scoop-shop standard. It yields a subtle breezy freshness, a touch of herbal interest, and a real balance with the milky notes and dark chocolate: a far cry from the toothpaste sharpness of some versions.
For that classic, cooling mint flavor, seek out peppermint. There are many, many varieties of mint. Most mint at the grocery store is what I dub "just mint" because it provides a bit of that minty freshness but is also herbal and mild. True peppermint, on the other hand, smells like a milder version of peppermint extract. You get that mind-calming coolness in your nostrils. When making a batch of this ice cream, I harvested 80 percent of my backyard peppermint pot. (Don't fret: this was its destiny, and it will grow back quickly.) If you have a good farmers' market, stop by and ask if they have true peppermint. I've found it at a couple of markets here in Chicago. You can use "just mint" or spearmint, but the flavor will be milder but still delicious.
Drizzling hot, melted chocolate into cold, churning ice cream freezes it into small bits, like stracciatella gelato. These small bits melt on your tongue more quickly, giving you a better chocolate flavor compared with waxy bites of big, cold chocolate chunks.
Fresh Mint Chip Ice Cream Recipe
32 g fresh peppermint leaves (It's a lot!)
300 g whole milk
300 g heavy cream
35 g light corn syrup
100 g sugar
1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 tablespoons dried milk powder
90 g dark chocolate (60-70 percent cocoa solids)
2 teaspoons vegetable oil (like canola or avocado)
Wash and dry the peppermint leaves.
In a small saucepan, combine the milk and cream and bring to a simmer. You should see bubbles on the edge of the pan and notice it steaming. Turn off the heat and add the mint leaves. Stir the leaves briefly, then cover and let steep at room temperature for 2 hours.
Use a fine mesh strainer to strain out the leaves. Squeeze the leaves into the dairy to extract every last drop of flavor. Return the dairy to the saucepan and add the corn syrup. In a small bowl, whisk together the sugar, xanthan gum, salt, and milk powder. Add the sugar mixture to the dairy, and turn the heat to medium-low. Cook, whisking, until the mixture is just steaming and all of the sugar is dissolved. Cover and let cool to room temperature, then refrigerate for 8-24 hours.
I found that the mint flavor tasted relatively mild after steeping but blossomed after the ice cream base cooled overnight.
Before churning, taste the ice cream base. If it's not minty enough for you, add some peppermint extract. (Start by adding just 1/4 teaspoon, stir, and taste.)
Churn using the instructions on your ice cream machine.
As the machine is churning, melt the chocolate with the oil in the microwave or over a double boiler. During the last minute of churning, slowly drizzle in the melted chocolate and then stop the ice cream machine. Aim for small chips of chocolate, but you don't want them completely integrated into the chocolate. You may have to give the ice cream a quick stir to break up any big bits of chocolate.
Get the ice cream out of the machine, into a container, and into the freezer as fast as possible. Freeze for at least 4 hours before enjoying.
Don't forget to lick the bowl and all of your utensils.
Happy Churning,
Martin
Another one I can’t wait to make!
Forty, schmorty. You're still a kid, kid! Love the post. Let me ask you: Do you find readers hesitant to buy xanthan gum?