It seems strange to use a citrus fruit like lime in an ice cream rather than a sorbet, or at least it does to me, but I promise it absolutely works. Lime & Mint Ice Cream has the creamy, richness of vanilla ice cream, but offers the bright, fresh, zing of a lime sorbet. This is the ice cream I want to enjoy on a very hot summer day because it’s so refreshing and yet still creamy and indulgent.
Lime and mint of course are good buddies and what comes to mind of course is a mojito. But these two flavours also work really beautifully with vanilla. The combination of the three is quite mellow in such a complementary way. I guarantee you that most people who come to your house will have never tried a Lime & Mint Ice Cream – its not exactly the kind of flavour that you find in a grocery store freezer section, so its uniqueness is part of its charm. It’s also really beautiful to look at with flecks of vanilla and little pops of mint leaves running through it.
I won’t bother giving instructions for making this recipe without an ice cream maker because if I’m honest I’m not a fan of no-churn ice cream recipes. I always they’re a lot of faff and they never quite have the right texture. So if you don’t have a machine, I’m afraid I must suggest you skip this one or better yet, invest in an ice cream maker because there’s no better frozen treat than one that’s homemade and it’s a lot of fun too!
Makes 2 pints
Ingredients
- 800ml double cream (heavy cream
- 250ml full fat milk (whole milk)
- 2 vanilla pods
- 8 egg yolks
- 180g white caster sugar
- Zest of 5 limes, juice of 2
- 25g fresh mint leaves, very finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon mint extract
Method
- Halve both of the vanilla pods lengthways and scrape the caviar (aka seeds) out using a knife straight into a saucepan that has a lid. Discard the pods or steep them into a jar of sugar to make vanilla sugar to use later in your baking recipes. Add the cream and milk to the saucepan and put it on medium heat. Heat this mixture until it’s nice and steamy and remove it from the heat just before it starts to boil. Set aside to cool.
- Add the egg yolks to the bowl of a stand mixer or a mixing bowl along with the caster sugar. Beat this mixture using either a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, a hand mixer or an electric whisk. You can also do this the old fashioned way, whisking the mixture by hand with a regular wire whisk if you’re up to the task. Beat the mixture until it’s thick, creamy and pale.
- Reduce the speed of your chosen mixture to low and slowly pour in the warm milk mixture gradually, whisking all the time. You want to do this little by little so the warm milk doesn’t scramble the eggs.
- When everything is thoroughly mixed, pour the mixture back into the saucepan on medium heat. Stirring constantly, cook this custardy mixture which will thicken as the eggs begin to cook. Keep doing this until just before it boils and then remove it from the heat to a protected surface where you can stir it constantly with a wire whisk for about 5 minutes to keep it nice and smooth.
- When the five minutes is up, cover the pan with the lid and leave it to cool for 15 minutes, giving it a quick stir once or twice during that time.
- After the 15 minutes, stir in the lime zest, lime juice, the chopped mint leaves and the mint extract and set it aside in a cool-ish place for about 2 hours if you have the time. If you don’t have that time, rest it for as long as you can or carry on, but giving it a couple of hours to sit will allow the flavours to mingle together and develop.
- When you’re ready transfer the ice cream mixture to an ice cream maker and churn it according to manifacturer’s instructions. If you find you have too much custard, you might need to do this in two batches. Once it’s sufficiently frozen (it should resemble soft serve ice cream), transfer your ice cream to containers with lids that are suitable for freezing and pop it into the freezer. Be sure not to fill up your containers all the way – leave a gap at the top as ice cream will expand as it freezes. Allow the ice cream at least 2 to 4 hours in the freezer before you plan to serve it, but it’s better if you can do at least overnight.
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