Fresh Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

Use high-quality, fresh ingredients in this mint chocolate-chip ice cream and the power of their natural flavors is sure to wow you!

Ice Cream Made with Fresh Mint

You will be surprised at the flavor – it’s actually not what you expect “mint chocolate chip ice cream” to taste like, if you’ve only ever had the typical store bought Dreyer’s. I knew I was shocked. The first bite tastes very minty and surprising, but the more you eat it, the more addicting it becomes.

I adapted this fresh mint chocolate chip ice cream recipe from Jeni Britton Bauer’s “Backyard Mint” recipe in Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home. I love her method of using a starch and cream cheese to get a richer, chewier texture out of your ice cream. However, I really love chocolate in fresh mint ice cream, so this is where the creativity began…

Mint Stracciatella – Better Than Your Typical Chocolate Chips

I have a problem with the tasteless chocolate chips you get in a lot of store-bought ice cream. They are cold, hard, and unforgiving to chew. Chocolate isn’t meant to be chewed.

To solve this issue, I looked to Italian stracciatella where they stream melted chocolate into cold gelato as its churning. By the time it hits the gelato, it freezes, creating irregular but delicate chocolate flakes that melt in your mouth.

But it doesn’t stop there – to achieve truely melt-in-your-mouth goodness, I combine the stracciatella method with the recipe for DIY magic shell. If you’re not familiar, Hershey’s sells this chocolate shell topping that’s liquid chocolate at room temperature but freezes upon contact with cold ice cream. The secret to doing this at home is coconut oil, which is solid in colder rooms. (In fact its pretty much always solid in my San Francisco apartment.)

The magic-shell chocolate is very dainty – it melts in your mouth as it touches your tongue with just a hint of floral coconut flavor.

To round it all out – I also add a bit of salt. Because salt is FLAVOR and I love salt. Especially in ice cream.

You’ll love this fresh mint chocolate chip ice cream that is jam-packed with the flavor of refreshing peppermint and bittersweet, subtly salty chocolate.

🍳Recommended Equipment

• medium-size pot
• whisk
• ice cream machine – I use the KitchenAid ice cream attachment which includes a freezer bowl, paddle, and adaptors to use with my KitchenAid stand mixer
• ice cream storage container