Thin Mint Ice Cream

It’s summer. (Yay.) It’s 90 plus degrees out. (Boo.) I’m craving ice cream.

We are having a heat wave here in Portland, Ore. It’s my third summer here and I’m pretty sure the summers are getting hotter and hotter, earlier and earlier. The first summer I was here I don’t remember it being particularly hot until the end of July/August/a bit into September.

This past May (early May) we had several days in a row (I think longer than a week!) where we were in the high 80s and low 90s. I’m from the midwest, which enjoys grotesquely hot and humid summers, but moved here from Los Angeles, which enjoys 8 or 9 months of mild summer-like weather. After two years in Los Angeles my body adjusted to the weather and I truly became a Californian. Do Californians like 90 degrees? This one doesn’t.

I’ve heard people say when it gets hot out – or this hot out – the heat suppresses their appetite. Not me. In fact, I’m a bit of the opposite. Is it possible the heat induces my appetite? And, let’s face it, even when I’m not hungry, the summer heat makes me crave ice cream. (Not that I need summer as an excuse to eat ice cream. Ice cream goes well in my mouth and stomach 12 months of the year.)

For Christmas my mom got me an ice cream maker attachment for my KitchenAid mixer. Once I found out how good and easy homemade ice cream is, I haven’t wanted to stop making it.

A coworker of mine shanghaied me into ordering a large amount of Thin Mint Cookies during the time his daughter was selling Girl Scout cookies. And when I say he shanghaied me, I mean I called in a favor during a time of desperation and he suggested I could repay him by buying more cookies from him. He probably only meant for me to buy an additional box or two. I folded like a house of cards and bought four with no real pressure from him.

What the Sam hell am I going to do with 6 boxes of Thin Mint cookies I wondered to myself. Ahem. Make ice cream, obviously. This recipe yields 4 plus pints of homemade ice cream.

ingredients.

3 c. half-and-half
8 egg yolks
1 c. sugar
2 c. heavy whipping cream
4 tsp. vanilla extract
1/8 tsp. salt
1 or 2 boxes of Thin Mint cookies

directions.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, heat half-and-half until very hot but not boiling, stirring often. Remove from heat; set aside.
Place egg yolks and sugar in mixer bowl. Attach bowl and wire whip to mixer. Turn to Speed 2 and mix about 30 seconds or until well blended and slightly thickened. Continuing on Speed 2, very gradually add the half-and-half; mix until blended.
Return half-and-half mixture to medium saucepan; cook over medium heat until small bubbles form around the edge and mixture is steamy, stirring constantly. Do not boil. Transfer half-and-half mixture into large bowl; stir in whipping cream, vanilla and salt. Cover and chill thoroughly, at least 8 hours.
Assemble and engage freeze bowl, dasher and drive assembly as directed in attachment instructions. Turn to STIR (Speed 1). Using container with a spout, pour mixture into freeze bowl. Continue on STIR (Speed 1) for 15 to 20 minutes or until desired consistency. Stir in crushed cookies when the ice cream has 1 to 2 minutes stirring time left.
Immediately transfer ice cream into serving dishes or freeze in airtight container.

Here are my thoughts on this recipe:

It could possibly use mint flavor. If you love mint, I would suggest adding some mint along with the rest of the ingredients right before chilling.
While we are talking about adding ingredients, I think I made a mistake in crumbling cookies into the pint while packing the ice cream. The resulting texture was a ‘dry’ cookie. It’s not horrible – just not the intent I had for the texture of my ice cream. To fix this, I mixed the ice cream with a spoon before eating. To avoid having to fix the ice cream after the fact, all the cookies should be stirred in with the ice cream while the ice cream is mixing.

I was slightly disappointed with the end result because of the dry cookie texture but would definitely try it again with some tweaking. Which probably means next year when I again buy a large amount of Neal’s daughter’s cookies, I’ll be churning more ice cream.

Check out other ice cream flavors I’ve made: