Makes 1 quart of ice cream

 

Ingredients:

2 cups packed mint leaves

2 cups heavy cream

2 cups milk

1 cup sugar

pinch of salt

5 egg yolks

Melting Chocolate for frogs (alternately, you can use chocolate chips or cut chunks)

chocolate frog mold

 

Make the chocolate frogs: 

Melt chocolate in small amounts in a glass container in the microwave. I heated it for 1 minute, stireed it, and heated it for another 20 seconds. Spoon chocolate into chocolate frogs (I only used the ones that look like actual frogs). When the molds are full, tap the mold gently on the counter to release air bubbles. Put mold in the refrigerator to harden. When frogs are cool (after a few minutes), gently tap mold on the counter to release the frogs. Repeat process until you have 40 frogs.

Make the ice cream:

In a medium sauce pan, combine mint, cream, milk, salt and sugar. Warm over the stove until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is hot. Remove pan from heat, cover, and let mixture stand for an hour to infuse the mint flavor.

Using a strainer, remove the mint from the pan.

Rewarm the infused milk.

While milk is warming, whisk together the egg yolks in bowl. Slowly pour some of the warm mint mixture into the yolks, whisking constantly. Then scrape the warm egg and mint mixture back into the saucepan.

Cook the mixture on low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. This will take just a few minutes.

Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature, and then put in the refrigertato for 2 hours or more until cold.

 

 

When mixture is cold, pour it into your ice cream maker. (If you don’t have an ice cream maker, you can pour this into a container that can go into the freezer, and stir it every 15 minutes until it is frozen solid.) When mixture is almost finished mixing, add 40 chocolate frogs. (If you don’t have an ice cream maker, these can be added when mixture is almost done freezing in the container, and be stirred in.)

Pur ice cream mixture into a container that can go in the freezer. Let freeze for 4 hours. Give it a couple of stirs during the freezing process to prevent the chocolate frogs from settling at the bottom of the container.

 

 

To make this mint chocolate chip, skip the frogs and add chocolate chips, or drizzle melted chocolate into the ice cream mixture while it is mixing, as well as some into the container you’re freezing it into.

I used spearmint and peppermint to make this, as it was abundant in my garden, but in the future, I will use peppermint or chocolate mint. The mint flavor is strong, so the amount of mint can be reduced according to your tastes.