The Scoop

This summer, the mint I planted with my students grew like crazy in my container garden. It was a bit hard to contain, so I ended up clipping a bit of it and replanting it in another container. It is amazing how fast mint grows! But what does one do with all of this mint? I mean, aside from decorating cocktails with it.

Make mint chocolate ice cream of course! I have vague memories of making ice cream as a kid, but back them we had an ice cream making. I don't have one of those. So, I did some research on the internet and found a none ice-cream-maker-recipe. And aside from the fact that it took lots of time, it was easy peasy.

After infusing the mint into the milk and the cream and mixing in the egg yolks I let it cool and placed it in the fridge for the night where it became a custard mixture. It smelled amazing. Last night, I stuck it in the freezer. Every couple of hours, I would take it out, stir it up to break up the ice crystals and put it back in. Early on, I stirred in some hot fudge. I think that I was hoping it would solidify and become perfect chips. I was wrong. Instead, I got chocolate ribbons. But hey, chocolate is chocolate, right?!

This morning, I gave it one last stir and took a taste. The texture is great, the chocolate is great, the actual taste....well? It's very pepperminty. Too pepperminty. I know I need to give it a chance, that homemade ice cream isn't going to taste like store bought ice cream, but I wish that there were some way for me to tone it down. Any suggestions from those of you who have made this before???