Mint choc chip ice cream without a machine

At the risk of being repetitive, this is a Kavey Eats' Bloggers Scream For Ice Cream post. They're very effective at getting me to actually make and blog things.

Filling oozing out of the bittermints

This one is the easiest yet. And, no, you don't need an ice cream maker. You need a plastic container and electric beaters. You also need ten minutes, tops, and then a couple of hours lounging in front of Friday night telly, with a couple of breaks to beat the mixture and make your neighbours wonder what you're doing at 9pm on a Friday.

The challenge is herbs. I'm one of those people who likes my desserty things to taste sweet and my mains to taste savoury and never the twain shall meet. So I went for mint. Unimaginative, I know, but I'd had a busy week and once I'd thought about mint choc chip ice cream, I couldn't get it out of my head, or the taste out of my mouth.

Kavey mentioned she'd done fresh mint, After Eights and custard as an easy ice cream (and she's one of those people I actually trust when she says 'easy'. I know I'm not going to find myself 'just' bletting medlars or pitting 40 cherries).

However, I had overindulged at my brother's birthday party the day before. When I say 'overindulged', I don't mean I drank too much, I mean I snaffled as many After Eights as possible while the rest of Family Lee wasn't looking. So the thought of After Eights made me feel just a tiny bit sick.

Someone else on Twitter had been talking about Bendick's Bittermints, and when I thought of them, that was it. I couldn't get that icy mint taste out of my mouth.

I can tell you how to make it, in one simple tweet I sent Kavey:

@Kavey emailed Andy 'buy custard and bittermints', chopped mint and mints, stirred, froze, buzzed with beaters, froze overnight.
— Thunderstorm Bun (@thunderstormbun) June 8, 2013

That really is all there is to it. Just wait for the mixture to freeze to a sludge, then buzz with electric beaters above once an hour until you get a texture that's recognisably ice cream or get fed up and go to bed.

I think I chopped six mints into the mixture (and I really like mint). I'd also advise using very fresh mint. Mine had done Pimm's duty the weekend before and was showing its age a bit.

When you taste the combination of mints, oddly, you taste the fresh mint first, then it disappears and then you get the Bendick's taste. I suspect you could do it without the fresh mint, especially if you upped the Bendick's. And it essentially tastes like mint choc chip, but homemade, which is no bad thing at all.