Peppermint Ice Cream with Fresh Mint

Treat your taste buds to homemade peppermint ice cream made with fresh mint. It’s just the thing to help you cool off on a hot summer day. Here’s the recipe.

What You’ll Need:

• A batch of your favorite vanilla ice cream base
• A handful of fresh peppermint
• 2 tsp peppermint extract or 1/4-1/2 tsp peppermint oil

What You Do:

Remove any large stems. Then, finely mince your peppermint. The smaller the better.

Whip up a batch of your favorite vanilla ice cream base. Replace the vanilla extract called for with the peppermint extract or peppermint oil. You can use a no-cook base, or one that requires cooking. Either is fine. I used a no-cook recipe this time, so I wouldn’t have to wait for it to chill.

Once your base is ready, add the minced peppermint and peppermint extract or peppermint oil. Stir well to combine.

Then, transfer your base to an ice cream maker.

I’m a big fan of this Cuisinart Electric Ice Cream Maker. It has a cylinder that you keep in the freezer, so you don’t have to mess with rock salt, and it does all the churning for you. If you prefer to hand-churn your ice cream, I recommend a Donvier ice cream maker. It also has that magic cylinder.

Props to you, if you prefer to use rock salt and hand-churn your ice cream. I’ve just found that I make ice cream more often when I make it easy on myself. And I’m in the more-is-better camp when it comes to ice cream.

Enjoy your peppermint ice cream right away, or transfer it to the freezer to give it more time to harden up.

I was smart and made this batch while my kids were away at summer camp. See previous statement about more ice cream is better.

Variation

Add a cup of mini chocolate chips for mint chocolate chip ice cream.

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