32 Flavor Challenge - Flavor #3 Maui mint chocolate chipper

This winter, Elena, Anna and I went on a trip to Hawaii, spending most of our space journey on the island of Maui. In remembrance of the good times we had and the friends we made I concocted this recipe. What puts the aloha in this recipe is a couple teabags from Maui, they contain things like peppermint, mamaki, lemon grass, chamomile, cinnamon bark and star anise. At first I was just gonna make regular mint chocolate chip (because it's my fave), but then I remembered I had these magical teabags. So into the pot they went. I'm glad I added them, I think it brought the ice cream to the next flavor dimension. Oh! And you can purchase these awesome teas online if you so desire. Anyways so many Maui stories to tell, but we're here for ice cream, so let's keep on keepin' on. 

Elena and I in between Big Beach & Little Beach

Flavor #3 Maui mint chocolate chipper

Ingredients:

2 Cans coconut milk (A little less than 4 C.)

2 Makawao mint teabags 

3 C. fresh mint

½ C. sugar

1 t. vanilla extract

*If you, understandably, can't obtain these teabags, a normal mint tea would be fine too, or you can omit the tea bags entirely and just add more mint. OR you can try to recreate the teabags. 

Unlike the other flavors posted so far, this recipe uses coconut, resulting in a creamier ice cream and does not require the thickening magic of arrowroot. To begin the ice cream process, go ahead and pour your coconut milk into a medium sized sauce pan. Heat it on medium, making sure that it does boil. 

As that's heating up grab your mint and sort through it. I chopped up my mint a bit, but in hindsight I don't think it's necessary, as it just made straining out the mint more difficult. In my bunch of mint I found an assortment of insects including this fellow here, so be careful!

So cute! So slimy!

Once your coconut milk is warmed up, go ahead and add the mint and teabag. Turn the heat down to low, and just let those flavors infuse for about 30 minutes or so. You could probably infuse for a shorter amount of time, but I wanted to get as much mint as possible into my ice cream.

Some serious infusion going on here.

After your coconut milk has been infused go ahead and strain out the leaves and tea bag. I just used a slotted spoon so I wouldn't have to deal with pouring hot liquids through a strainer or something like that. Then let that mixture chill in the fridge. If I haven't mentioned it already, it's extremely important to make sure your pre-ice cream slurry is thoroughly chilled before you put it in the ice cream maker! If it's not chilled your ice cream will not freeze as well. I usually let my mixtures chill for like 5-6 hours, if not overnight. So be patient!  When your ice cream batter is nice and chilled, get the chocolate ready.

Just choppin' some chocolate.

So this step will be different for different people and their ice cream makers....I have a nice little hand cranker so I got my ice cream about half of the way done and then added the chocolate shavings. Using a spoon to cram them in doesn't hurt either.

And there you have it! Delicious Maui minty ice cream. My batch turned out extremely minty, which is what I was going for. Every burp was really minty, so it may be good in lieu of gum/breath mints/mouthwash/toothpaste/etc. I've got a lot of exciting flavors coming up and i'm trying to keep up with the blogs. I have made a new flavor every day since the conception of this idea, but I can't seem to blog as regularly. And I'm trying to hype up this project, how do I go about doing that?!