Mint Chip Ice Cream Recipe

Mint Chip is my favorite ice cream flavor! This recipe is creamy, sweet, cool and minty with the perfect amount of chocolate flakes in every bite. This recipe is easy and fun to make, it just takes time and patience.

Ingredients for Mint Chip Ice Cream

Milk

Whole milk is best for the creamiest results but 2% or even fat free still works. The quality of the texture of your ice cream is depended on the milk you choose. There is a difference and whole milk taste better but for my own healthy needs I often choose fat free and it still works.

Cream

Yes, milk and cream. Not whipping cream, just normal heavy cream. If you don’t have cream, half and half will also work. The fat in the cream helps keep the ice cream from freezing completely, keep your dessert from getting icy and allowing for smooth scooping. So using heavy cream is best but half and half will also work. I have also make this recipe without cream or half and half, just fat free milk and it does turn out, but it’s not rich and creamy, just milky. The texture is not perfect but my kids still loved it. If you try to make this dessert too healthy by using fat free milk, reducing the sugar and leaving out the eggs you will get icy hard ice cream. Not ideal.

Sugar

Sugar doesn’t just make the ice cream sweet, it also, along with the cream, helps keep the texture creamy. Sugar will change the freezing point of the milk. Keeping the ice cream from solidifying completely making it easy to scoop and delicious to eat.

Egg Yokes

Eggs add so much flavor and texture to the this recipe. Some people don’t like it but I think it makes it so much better. I’ve made ice cream enough times without eggs to know that leaving them out is not worth it to me. Cooking the eggs in the milk makes this recipe take a long time. Once its heated up you have to let it cool and get cold in the refrigerator before adding it to the ice cream maker. You don’t want to add hot cream to your frozen ice cream maker, it wont be cold enough to freeze the cream.

Mint Simple Syrup

You can either buy a syrup or make it. It’s really easy to make, simply boil water and sugar together for about 5 minutes then take off of the heat and add peppermint leaves for 10-15 minutes. I used fresh peppermint from my garden but you can buy it in sprigs from the store. I let the leaves sit in the syrup all while I made the cream and eggs mixture. The flavor was bold and minty, it was perfect.

Chocolate Chips

Dark, chocolate, milk chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate, mint chocolate…. its up to you what type of chocolate chips you want. Mini chocolate chips would also work really well for this recipe I used semi sweet and chopped them up to make them smaller but they where not small enough. My husband ask if next time to make the even smaller. So I may try the food processes next time.

Salt

Just a little, but just enough to bring out the flavor in your ingredients.

How To Make Mint Chip Ice Cream

Freeze Your Ice Cream Maker

Make sure your ice cream maker bowl has been in the freezer for 4 hours.

Make a Mint Simple Syrup

Add the water and sugar to a small pot on medium to high heat. Bring to a boil. Take off the heat and add 1-2 sprigs of mint leaves. Let sit while you make the cream.

Heat on Medium to Medium High Heat 

Heat the ingredients on the stove to a light simmer and let simmer for about 10 minutes. The goal is to get the sugar to melt and the eggs to be cooked. Stir continuously and don’t let it come to a full boil. If you want a thick custard like consistency you may need to add 2 more egg yokes and cook a little longer. I find when making ice cream it doesn’t matter too much if you get the mixture to become a full custard before placing it in the ice cream maker or not. Our goal is ice cream, not custard.

Add Mint Simple Syrup

Take the cream off the heat and add the simple syrup. Once cooled a bit give it a taste to see if its minty enough. If not you can keep the mint leave in the cream until its cooled all the way.

Let Cool Completely

You really don’t want to put a hot mixture in your ice cream machine. It won’t freeze. So pour into another bowl, cool on the counter till it stops steaming then place in the refrigerator for an hour. Once completely cool you can start the churning process.

Pour Into An Ice Cream Maker and Churn For 20 Minutes

If you are using a KitchenAid Ice Cream bowl and attachment, turn the mixer on stir. Do not go any faster. You want to churn your ice cream slowly. If you are using an old fashioned ice cream maker or an electric ice cream maker follow the directions that came with your machine. Sadly I am not versed with every brand.

Freeze For 20 Minutes

The longer you churn the warmer your bowl is going to get. So I put it back in the freezer for 20 – 30 minutes to help keep everything cold. Leave the blade/mixer in the bowl.

Churn Again For Another 20 Minutes

When I bring it back out of the freezer I first break it up a little with a spoon. I don’t want it to be so hard that the mixer doesn’t work. It will seem at this point that it’s getting softer at first and not as frozen but then the ice cream will seem to increase and in my case, overflow a little bit. This is good.

Freeze For Another 20 Minutes Before Serving

By this time it might be close to a soft serve texture and you can serve it if you like. I will give my kids a spoonful and then place back in the freezer for another 20 minutes (or longer) to solidify a bit more. After that scoop away!