Since getting an ice cream maker I’ll use any excuse to try out some new recipes, I like to try and make different flavours of frozen yoghurt – somehow I feel less guilty enjoying a tub of that than the real stuff! This weekend I tried out a recipe I found from Good Food as a dessert to some mini egg brownies I made for Easter.

Ingredients

• 140g dark chocolate
• 400ml full-fat milk
• 300ml double cream
• 1 vanilla pod, split
• 75g fresh mint leaves with stalks
• 4 large egg yolks
• 140g caster sugar
• green food colouring (optional)

Method

1. Firstly, I used an ice cream maker and I think it’s the case with all of these but you need to place ice cream makersMeasure out the chocolate, the original calls for dark only, I think it would be nice with some milk as well. Place your chocolate in a zip lock back and freeze for at least 30 minutes.
2. You can let your frustrations out by using either a rolling pin or kitchen hammer to smash the chocolate up into small pieces. in the freezer for at least 12 hours before using – this doesn’t really work as a last minute dessert!
3. Cut the vanilla pod and scrape out the seeds, placing these and the pod into a pan with the milk and cream. Place on a medium heat until almost boiling and then add in your mint leaves and stalks. Cover with a lid and leave to sit on a low heat for 15 minutes.
4. Strain the creamy mixture into a clean pan pressing on the mint leaves to extract the most flavour, you can now get rid of the vanilla pod and mint.
5. In a bowl whisk the egg yolks and caster sugar until thick and pale in colour, set this aside.
6. Reheat your creamy mixture, again to the point of almost boiling. Pour half of this hot mixture into the sugar mixture and combine, once this is done add the remaining mixture.
7. You now have a custard – add this to a clean pan and cook on a low heat until thick (about 3-4 minutes), make sure it doesn’t curdle. I added in some green food colouring here, completely optional but it doesn’t feel like mint unless it’s green to me!
8. Strain the custard into a bowl and leave it to cool, stir it occasionally to avoid a skin forming. The original recipe suggests to now chill the custard overnight – I wasn’t prepared enough so I only did this for about 3 hours. However, I did save half the custard and kept it in the fridge overnight and made more ice cream which I think was a better consistency so I’d advise to keep the custard in the fridge for 12 hours if you can.
9. Once suitably chilled add the custard to your ice cream maker as per manufacturers instructions, mine took about 20-30 minutes of churning and then I added the chocolate and put it in the freezer. If you don’t have one, pour the custard (after at least 12 hours chilling) into a chilled container and freeze for 2-3 hours. Then take it out and whisk the mixture again and add in your chocolate, freezing until solid.