Mint Chip Gelato Recipe

The heat made us do it. Yes, we finally got an ice cream maker!  We have the classic Cuisinart ICE-20 and are having a blast experimenting with fun flavors. So far we've made Cafe Sua Da (Vietnanamese Iced Coffee), grapefruit, hibiscus, and the object our affection and of this post, mint chip. Mint chip is such a classic ice cream flavor and mint is such a vital herb in Vietnamese cooking, we wanted to find the best method to highlight these ingredients. David Lebovitz has a fantastic recipe for mint chip ice cream but we prefer the flavor of gelatos and decided to adapt his corn starch based Sicilian style egg-less gelato recipe to make our mint chip gelato. Why do such a thing? David Lebovitz states it best: "not using eggs means the flavor's focused squarely on the pistachio with nothing to distract from those perfect scoops of it. Except your spoon."  We wanted the flavor to squarely focused on mint chip and, oh boy, it sure did!

A video tutorial on ice cream using cornstarch by Mark Bittman, gave us all the confidence we needed to try this recipe.

Mint Chip Gelato (adapted from David Lebovitz and Mark Bittman)
Printable Recipe

• 2 cups whole milk (for more richness, you can use 1/2 and 1/2)
• 1/3 cup sugar 
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch 
• pinch salt
• 1-2 bunches of peppermint, washed, dried, and destemmed (2 packs a punch, but depends on size and flavor of your mint)
• 5 oz. dark chocolate (we used 72% cacao)

Make a slurry with about 3-4 tbs of milk and corn starch in a bowl and set aside.  Add the remainder of the milk to a sauce pan, mint, salt, and sugar under medium low heat.  When mixture starts to bubble, turn off heat and allow mint to steep for about 1 hour.  Then pour mixture over a sieve and squeeze out the fluid from  mint and discard.

Reheat his mixture under medium low heat. When it begins to bubble, add your mixed slurry and stir making sure there are no clumps. Continue to heat until it thickens..when you can run a line on a back of a spoon without the mixture coming together it should be done.  Cool completely (preferably over night) and then add to your ice cream maker, follow it's directions.

Place the container that you plan on storing the ice cream in the freezer.

In the mean time, coarsely chop the chocolate into small pieces and heat over a water bath.  When the ice cream maker is done, scribble the melted chocolate onto your cold container--it should freeze almost instantly. Scoop in a layer of ice cream and break up the chocolate. Scribble more chocolate and layer on more ice cream.  Continue until done and freeze until firm.  Before serving allow to thaw just slightly before scooping.

The mint flavor is nothing like the store bought mint chips which are probably made mostly of flavor extract.  The flavor is deliciously herbacious, organic, and mint just bursts through. We love David Lebovitz's method of using the melted chocolate. Not only does it make for an interesting pattern to the ice cream, the texture of the instantly frozen chips of dark chocolate is fantastic.   Thanks to both David Lebovitz and Mark Bittman for this delicious inspiration! 

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