Recipe Adventure: Matcha Green Tea Ice Cream

The other night I had a dessert mishap, I bought the necessary ingredients to make vanilla bean ice cream, but me being a bit of a space case lately I completely forgot to buy the beans, well actually I assumed we still had some at home, but lesson learned…..never assume! The problem was I only realized we didn’t have any vanilla beans once the mixture was already on the stove…whoops!

So I had to improvise and come up with another way to flavour the ice cream, because I definitely wasn’t going to let the cream go to waste. I made a double batch and flavoured half with maple syrup, but all that did was make a really sweet ice cream, because we didn’t have enough maple syrup to replace most of the sugar, so the maple flavour really wasn’t that strong. The other half of the batch was flavoured with Matcha or powdered green tea. You guys, it’s soooo good!

Matcha is powerful stuff and since my ice cream batter was on the sweet side I thought the bitterness of this tea would help balance the flavours. I made a regular vanilla ice cream recipe, without the vanilla beans and once the mixture cooled in the fridge I took about half a cup of batter and whisked in a few tablespoons of matcha tea powder. It will look green and sludgy, but that’s ok, the key here is to mix in all the powder until it’s completely incorporated, it’s much easier to mix it into a smaller amount rather than the entire mixture. Once it’s smooth, pour the mixture into your plain batter and mix well until it’s a nice light pale green.

Cool the batter completely and follow your ice cream makers instructions to make the most delicious ice cream ever! Ok I may be exaggerating a little bit, but I really do love green tea ice cream and I’m so happy with the way this turned out. For the full recipe, continue reading below.

Matcha Green Tea Ice Cream Recipe

Ingredients:
2 Cups Heavy Cream
1 Cup Whole Milk
3/4 Cup Sugar
1/8 Tsp Salt
1/4 Tsp Guar Gum
1 Large Egg
2-3 Tbsp Matcha Powder

Directions:
Combine cream, milk, sugar and salt in a heavy saucepan.
Heat cream mixture until just to a boil. Whisk in Guar Gum.

Whisk egg in a large bowl (I prefer a chilled stainless steel bowl), slowly pour the hot cream mixture in a very small stream into the bowl and whisk vigourously. I like to get someone to pour the mixture while I whisk.

Once combined, pour the mixture back into the saucepan and heat on medium until just to a boil. Do not let it boil, remove from heat immediately and let cool. Cover and place in the fridge until completely chilled.

Once your mixture is close to chilled, take about a half a cup of the batter and mix in a few tablespoons of matcha green tea powder. The amount of tea will depend on how strong you like it. My recommendation is to start with a couple of tablespoons and see how you like it and change it up next time if you want it to be stronger. Whisk the matcha powder into the half cup of batter until completely incorporated and then stir it back into the batter. Chill completely and follow your ice cream makers instructions on how to set the batter.

Enjoy!