My name is Jessica and I have an addiction. No need to panic and hold off on the call to Betty Ford as this addiction is to home-made ice cream. Over the past year and half ice cream making has become a wonderful hobby, passion and costly addiction. How did this develop? How did this addiction happen to me? I have endlessly asked myself these questions often over the past months. Here is the story…
Little Bro used to be a Pastry Chef at Quality Meats in NYC, where they made wonderful small-batch home-made ice cream. My most memorable flavor: coffee and doughnuts with real chunks of doughnut. Then Mom purchased a Kitchen Aid Ice Cream bowl attachment and David Lebovitz’s book, Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas and Sweet Accompaniments. Shortly after, I purchased the same book and received my very own Ice Cream bowl attachment as a gift and its been downhill since then.
I now have TWO ice cream bowls (so I could double production!). We rearranged the laundry room (which included 6 trips to Home Depot for the right washer parts. All were returned, turns out the parts were not really needed.) in our new place to fit the chest freezer, because getting rid of it was absolutely not an option. I have driven up to 30 minutes to find commercial quart sized paper ice cream containers. My cookbook shelf has three additional books exclusively about ice cream and frozen desserts. When we travel, I research ice cream stores to visit. I make my friends try new ice cream places I read about. My Perfect Scoop book is permanently stained red in several places from a raspberry sorbet incident a few months ago. I have made dozens of batches of chocolate ice cream in hopes of finding the perfect combination of semisweet and bittersweet chocolate.
The addiction goes further into the rabbit hole: I have spent hours and hours researching the Ice Cream business. Have I called about available retail spaces in my neighborhood to see how much rent would be? Yes, I have. Thought of a name for the business and registered the domain name? Guilty! I did and still do all of this knowing it is not a good time to open a retail operation.
I acknowledge my addiction has issues: (1) the high cost of milk, cream, eggs, etc. (2) calorie/fat content of ice cream and finally (3) there must be more useful things I can do with my time. But I have loved ice cream since before I can remember. We used to have Breyers chocolate ice cream stocked in the freezer (Haagen Daaz, if I wanted to spoil myself in college) and I would coat my scoop with too many sprinkles (and still do!). It is an addiction I can’t seem to shake and subconsciously, I don’t think I want to!
The latest batch is Mint Chocolate Chip for Boyfriend’s brother-in-law.
Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
adapted from David Lebovitz’s book, Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas and Sweet Accompaniments.
makes about 1 quart
Ingredients:
- 1 cup whole milk
- 2 cups whipping cream (try not to get the “ultra-pasteurized” kind)
- 3/4 cup sugar
- Pinch of kosher salt
- 2 cups fresh mint leaves
- 5 large egg yolks
- 3-5 ounces of chopped chocolate (I use a combo of semisweet and bittersweet chocolate)
1. In a medium sauce pan, warm milk, 1 cup of the cream, sugar and salt until the sugar and salt are fully dissolved, about 4 minutes. Stir in mint leaves, making sure all are covered with liquid. Cover and remove from the heat. Allow the mint leaves to steep for at least an hour (longer if you like it really minty!).
2. While the mint is steeping, separate the eggs for the 5 yolks needed. I find the next part goes much better when the yolks are at room temperature. Place yolks in a medium bowl and whisk the yolks until slightly thickened, about 2 minutes. And since you have time, setup a fine-mesh strainer over a bowl and place a piece of cheesecloth in the strainer.
3. Strain the milk mixture to remove and discard all the mint leaves. Using the same sauce pan, rewarm the milk mixture until hot but not boiling. Using a ladle, slowly pour the hot milk mixture into the yolks, while whisking constantly. Repeat this process one more time. Scrape the egg mixture into the saucepan with the remaining milk mixture. Use a wooden spoon to combine.
4. Stir constantly over medium-low making sure to scrape the bottom and sides. The mixture will thicken and coat the back of the wooden spoon over about 5-7 minutes. Watch the mixture carefully though, you don’t want it to boil. Pour the now formed custard through the cheesecloth and stir in the remaining cup of cream. Place over a ice bath to chill quickly. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
5. Follow instructions based on your ice cream maker model to turn the custard into ice cream. If you are using the Kitchen Aid Ice Cream bowl attachment, about 20 minutes should result in a fluffy ice cream. Mix in the chopped chocolate with a spatula. Spoon into a freezer compatible container and chill for at least 4 hours. Scoop, serve and enjoy!
Sadly though, I can’t ship my passion (dry ice is ridiculously expensive, trust me, I have checked) to friends and family. But if you are ever nearby, please stop by, we ALWAYS have ice cream in the house (3-4 different flavors, minimum, guaranteed).
