Peppermint Ice Cream

When you think cool and delicious treat, my first thought is of a frosty Peppermint ice cream.  Only trouble is, they only offer it as a specialty ice cream in the dead of winter.  Now I totally get that candy canes and Christmastime go hand in hand, but shouldn't your most invigorating flavor be marketed during those hot times of the year when you need the most relief? Come to think of it, peppermint the actual candy has never been a favorite of mine...but somehow, when you freeze it with sugar and cream it suddenly becomes this magical concoction that just hits the spot.  Now that we have our 2-quart ice cream maker and it's mid summer, I was so excited to defy the ice cream marketing gurus and make my own personal Christmas in July!

Merry ho ho ho to me!

Here's what you will need:

Ingredients:

2 3/4 cups cold milk
3 1/2 cups heavy cream
1  cup of sugar
2  teaspoons peppermint extract
6+ drops of neon pink food coloring (optional)
1 cup crushed peppermint candy

Put some peppermint candies into a zip top plastic bag and to be safe, but that bag in another bag, just to ensure the broken candy won't leak out.  Make sure to squeeze out all the air or you will have a large minty explosion on your hands.  Using a rolling pin or other large heavy object, crush enough candy to measure out to 1 full cup.  Don't smash them into power all the way, try and keep small sized chunks here or there for added texture in your ice cream.

Put the whole milk and sugar into a bowl and mix with an electric mixer for 1-2 minutes until the sugar is completely dissolved. Pour in the heavy cream and stir together.  Add the 2 tsp of peppermint extract and the 6 drops of food coloring (optional) until every thing is just mixed together.

Pour your mixed ingredients into your 2-quart ice cream maker

Be sure to freeze your inner canister for a good 12-24 hours for the best results before adding ingredients

Turn your machine on and put in the paddle and attach the lid.  Set a timer for 22 minutes.  There is a large hole at the top of the lid (for adding things at the end) we tend to place an oven mitt gently over the opening to help keep things super cold in there.  After 20 minutes pour in the crushed candies into the mix and let it blend together for 5 more minutes.

It's pretty much at a soft serve stage right now, and you can eat it if you want (I won't deny the urge to stick a spoon in here and sample all the minty goodness is a hard one to suppress).  But we like to freeze it for at least 6 hours and sometimes over night to get that really great scoopable ice cream feel.

We love serving them in the little mini cones (baby cones my girls call them) and they make the perfect little after dinner treat!  I don't know what it is, but when the peppermint candy sits around in the cream for a while, it starts to get this gooey outer coating that is fun to suck on before crunching into the harder part of the candy.  Love it.  Printable recipe here.  I hope you are enjoying our collection of ice cream recipes for the Cuisinart 2-quart ice cream machine.  I had a hard time finding a big list of recipes out there, as most of them are for the 1 1/2 quart machine.  This recipe we made up ourselves and there are more to come!  We just did a banana caramel swirl chocolate chunk, and a double chocolate covered cherry chip as well, so stay tuned.  More good recipes on the way!  What's your all time favorite ice cream?  Is there are recipe or flavor combination you think we should try?  We are always up for experimenting!  :)