Simple No-Churn Ice Cream Recipe
Black Tea and Basil Ice Cream
It’s starting to feel like summer. The vegetables in our small garden are doing great, especially the cucumbers are growing at an impressive rate. For the first time this gardening season, I was able to pick a significant amount of basil, which inspired this week’s post. The warm weather we’ve been having this last week made me want to make some ice cream. I came up with a simple no-churn ice cream recipe. No ice cream maker required!
Over the years I’ve made ice cream in various ways, also pairing different flavors. For example, a simple vanilla ice cream served with pumpkin seed oil. Or coffee and caramelised hazelnuts. Also cherries and dark chocolate and raspberries with white chocolate. Not forgetting the brunost and caramel ice cream, discovered during my experience at Fattoria Ma’Falda. I made matcha ice cream a couple of years ago and at the time I had some fresh basil on hand, so I tried the two together. It tasted great! I don’t mean just garnishing a scoop of ice cream with a cute basil leaf, but having fresh basil be part of every mouthful. I know it sounds like a strange combination, but it works! This time, I tried it with black tea. The ice cream becomes beautifully speckled, tasting sweet and milky. Fresh basil sprinkled on top gives a nice contrast. I made this black tea and basil ice cream following my simple no-churn ice cream recipe. Check it out below!
No-churn Ice Cream Recipe
Ingredients
I use equal parts of sweetened condensed milk, double cream, and yogurt. This creates an ice cream base that you can flavor in any way you like.
Guidelines
Sweetened condensed milk: you can buy it or make it at home simply by boiling the same quantity of sugar and milk until it’s reduced by half, the consistency becomes thicker and the color is slightly golden.
Double cream: it’s much easier to whip the cream when it’s chilled, so keep it in the fridge until the last moment.
Yogurt: Using a thicker yogurt works best for this recipe. You can buy “Greek style” yogurt or make it at home, check out my recipe below!
To make the ice cream, mix yogurt with sweetened condensed milk. The latter is a great carrier of flavors. For instance, if you want to make chocolate ice cream, you can melt the chocolate directly in the hot sweetened condensed milk. You can also use it to take on the flavors of tea or coffee. To make black tea-flavored ice cream, I re-heated the sweetened condensed milk and basically used it to make tea. I used finely ground black tea leaves and I really like the speckled effect it gives the ice cream. I used about 5 grams of black tea per cup of sweetened condensed milk. Make sure the (flavored) sweetened condensed milk is completely cool before mixing it with the yogurt.
When the sweetened condensed milk and yogurt are mixed together, whip the double cream and fold it through the sweet yogurt. At this point, you can leave the ice cream mixture as is, or get creative and add your favorite ice cream flavors and toppings. Candied citrus and chocolate, for example. After that, get the ice cream in the freezer for at least 6 hours. Take it out of the freezer about 15 minutes before serving. Have fun experimenting with different flavors!
