This, straight from the mouth of my nine-year old nephew, who, since mint-chocolate-chip is his favorite ice cream flavor, has probably had more mint chocolate chip ice cream in the last year than any of us have had in the last twenty. Needless to say, hearing such a declaration when you’ve gone the extra effort to make ice cream from scratch is rather gratifying, don’t you think?
Why Use Fresh Mint
We have a couple of mint patches growing in our yard, though I never thought to use the mint we grow for ice cream until now. The taste of the ice cream using fresh mint really is out of this world, so if you can get your hands on fresh mint, I highly recommend using it for this ice cream.
Tip: Add Alcohol for Best Texture
Note that there is no alcohol in this recipe. A few teaspoons of some spirits such as rum or bourbon will help keep the ice cream soft over several days. Even the alcohol in vanilla extract will help. If you have no added alcohol in a homemade ice cream recipe, we recommend that you eat it up quickly, in a day or two; beyond that point the ice cream will quickly get very very hard. If you don’t have fresh mint, you can use an extract as an alternative. Mint extract is actually a combination of both spearmint and peppermint, while peppermint extract is made from just peppermint.
The Best Chocolate for This Ice Cream
While darker chocolate like semi-sweet or dark tends to pair best with mint, if your preference is for something a bit sweeter then, by all means, choose milk chocolate. Chocolate chips are fine to use in place of chopped chocolate, if that’s what you have on hand. We recommend either using mini chocolate chips, or chopping conventional-size chocolate chips into smaller pieces as chocolate, once frozen, tends to become a bit hard. Here’s a clever trick, from chocolate expert Alice Medrich, for enhancing the texture of chocolate when making ice cream: if you melt and re-freeze the chocolate before chopping it into chunks they stay nice and creamy once the ice cream is frozen. Give it a try!
Our Favorite Ice Cream Maker
In the market for an ice cream maker? Our top pick is the Cuisinart ICE-30BC 2-Quart Automatic Ice Cream Maker. It’s easy to use, inexpensive, compact, makes the creamiest ice cream, and the capacity is just the right size for many families. Learn more about why this ice cream maker is the favorite among the Simply Recipes editorial team: Why This $80 Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker is the Best Ice Cream Maker for Families
More Ice Cream Recipes
Put your ice cream maker to work and try these other ice cream recipes out!
Strawberry Ice Cream Vanilla Ice Cream Chocolate Ice Cream Butter Pecan Ice Cream Coffee Ice Cream
