When I mentioned I was playing around with ice cream, I wasn’t kidding. Peppermint stick is one of my favorite flavors…so I decided to whip up a batch. Now, I have to decide whether to serve this to the Thai Ambassador for dessert at Tuesday’s lunch…or to serve an equally rich and scrumptious chocolate mousse with almond tuiles. Such are the delicious questions that fill my mind every week.
To make this peppermint crunch ice cream, search my blog for my “Homemade Rocks! Vanilla Ice Cream” recipe or go directly to January 2011 and scroll down to my January 31 entry. Follow the directions, but omit the vanilla extract. Instead, to the churned ice cream, add 1 to 2 teaspoons peppermint or mint extract (to your taste…I love a minty flavor so I add 2), a tiny drop of pink food coloring (I used pink not red, but I suppose red will work, or go natural and skip it), and a 1/3 to 1/2 cup of peppermint crunch, which I purchased on-line from King Arthur Flour, but you can smash a couple of candy canes for the same effect. As you can see on the bottom left corner of the photo, before I take the finished ice cream out of the machine, I place my metal bowl on ice to prevent melting. This buys me time to mix in the extra ingredients. Enjoy!
