Mint Ice Cream

My top three flavors of ice cream are: Mint Chocolate Chip, Pumpkin and Coffee. If I am at Baskin and Robbins it would be Jamocha Almond Fudge. But I haven't been there in, oh 15 years or so. One of these days I am going to make some Jamocha Almond Fudge myself.

This Mint Ice Cream is based on the King of Ice Cream, David Lebovitz. His Ice Cream book is definitely on my wish list. I did change up his recipe just a bit.

Mint Ice Cream
inspired and largely based on David Lebovitz recipe found here.

2 cups Half and Half
1 cup heavy cream
5 egg yolks
3/4 sugar
pinch of salt
1 cup mint leaves*
2 tablespoons Creme de Menthe

Heat half and half, mint and salt in a heavy saucepan until it is just boiling.  Remove from heat and cover.  Let the mixture sit for at least an hour.  Pour the mixture through a sieve to remove mint leaves.  Squeeze them out to make sure you extract as much of the flavor as you can.

In a large bowl combine yolks, heavy cream and sugar.  Heat milk again to boiling.  Remove from heat and ladle the cream into the yolks, whisking briskly to prevent the yolks from cooking.  Once the mixture has been added to the yolks, return it to the pan and heat untilt he mixture thickens.  Remove from heat and put in an ice bath and chill in the fridge overnight.

Pour Creme de Menthe in during the churning process.  Freeze according to manufacturers instructions.

*Note: Last year I made mint ice cream from mint that just tasted terrible. All mint is not created equal. Taste it first and make sure it is the kind of mint you want in your ice cream.