Homemade Ice Cream: Creamy and Green Tea

1. Once you have made creamy ice cream as a base, you can create almost any dessert to your taste with various additions and mix-ins. For the cream base you need natural cream with a fat content of at least 30%, also called heavy cream or whipping cream. In Britain, double cream is just right. You need ordinary milk with 2-2.5% fat, plain white sugar and a little liquid vanilla extract, which blends well with milk.

   

2. To make creamy homemade ice cream, simply mix the milk and cream in a large saucepan. Add the sugar and liquid vanilla extract. You can do all this at once or one after another, then put the pan over low heat. By the way, at this stage you should add to the milk mixture any ingredients you are using as mix-ins and flavorings.

   

3. Heat the milk mixture slowly, stirring constantly with a spatula. The sugar must dissolve completely, without a trace. Taste the cream mixture and, if needed, add more sugar and vanilla, going by your own taste. Take the pan off the heat and cool to room temperature by standing it in cold water. Put the pan with the mixture in the refrigerator: the better the mixture is chilled, the easier it is to shape the dessert.

   

Homemade ice cream maker

1. A wonderfully convenient and simple device for making ice cream. The models are very similar. When choosing one, pay attention to the cooling bowl: the thicker the walls and the more coolant liquid in them, the more ice cream you can make without refreezing the bowl.

   

2. The idea is simple: the heavy bowl goes into the freezer ahead of time, for at least a day. Before you start, you put it into the machine and cover it with the lid that has the stirring paddle. If you do not have one, an ordinary metal pan will do, along with plenty of crushed ice for cooling. You can stir with an ordinary whisk.

3. The milk mixture is poured into the ice cream maker, and as it is stirred it is chilled by the frozen bowl. Gradually the mixture thickens and gets very cold. Usually freezing in the machine takes up to 15 minutes, but the icy bowl slowly warms up, so it may take longer.

   

4. This gives you an excellent ice cream: a simple creamy product that works as a dessert or as a base for other desserts. Transfer the nearly finished ice cream to a plastic container, cover with a lid and put it in the freezer. Depending on how far it freezes, you can have soft or hard (firm) ice cream.

   

How to make green tea ice cream

1. The recipe for homemade matcha ice cream is basically the same as the usual ice cream recipe. Matcha is a very interesting product that is available in stores. It is a special green tea ground to a powder, used in some desserts, baking, noodles and the Japanese tea ceremony.

   

2. While heating the milk mixture, add the green tea powder, sifting it through a small sieve. Powdered green tea does not dissolve in milk, but it steeps wonderfully, coloring the milk a pleasant soft green. Once the tea has steeped in the milk and colored it, cool the mixture exactly like the plain one, then strain it through cloth.

   

3. After thorough chilling, pour the mixture into the prepared ice cream maker and wait until soft green tea ice cream forms. Then freeze the green tea ice cream further in the freezer.

   

Serving the dessert

1. I do not know why ice cream is most often served in scoops. Maybe there is an explanation. But even as a child it seemed to me that store-bought or homemade ice cream in scoops tasted an order of magnitude better. When milkshakes were made in shops, the ice cream was taken from huge tubs with a special round scoop, and it came out as balls.

2. Today there are plenty of handy tools for shaping balls and spheres. If you made creamy ice cream for dessert, you can put it in special dessert glasses or simply on a dessert plate. Then pour syrup over it or sprinkle with grated chocolate. In season you can serve creamy ice cream with fresh strawberries or make a fruit salad.

   

3. Green tea ice cream looks best on a dark plate, wooden or ceramic. Just one scoop, to underline the elegance and splendor of this dessert. Sprinkle with a pinch of green tea powder and add a small sprig of fresh basil or mint.

   

4. Serve the cold dessert immediately, because it melts and runs very quickly. Keep what is left in the freezer, but not for too long. It is better not to let homemade ice cream sit around. Enjoy the taste and do not hurry. Eat ice cream with a small spoon and feel every bite.