DH is a huge fan of ‘After Eight’ thin Mints – those incredibly thin wafers of dark chocolate, encasing zesty and sweet peppermint inside. They’re just the right size, right thickness, and right amount of sweetness from the mint filling to balance the bitterness of the dark chocolate. If there ever was a chocolate made in heaven, it has to be this! My sister recently travelled to Japan, and happened to pick up a huge box of After Eight thin mints at the duty free shop on her way back to India 😀 Naturally, we spent the last one month relishing the mints after dinner everyday. Since I make ice creams in summer pretty frequently, my sister suggested that I try turning this beloved sweet treat into an ice cream. It was like someone had switched on a light inside my head. Why didn’t this ever occur to me?? 😀
This ice-cream will WOW you if you love the combination of dark chocolate and peppermint. This can be made extremely chocolatey by adding melted chocolate to the ice cream. I chose to keep the ice cream base as plain cream/vanilla, because my sister wanted a marbled ‘cookies and cream’ kind of effect. Personally, I think I prefer the chocolatey version(which I will put up soon). Either way, this is delicious! To top everything, this is eggless, does not involve any churning whatsoever, and does not require any machines to make this. You will get velvety soft, rich and creamy ice cream if you just follow the instructions. Read on for the recipe!
Ingredients
- 1 small tin condensed milk (1 cup)
- Whipping cream – 1.5 cups
- After Eight Thin Mints – about 8 pieces, just broken into small pieces
- Vanilla essence – 1/2 tsp
Method
- Refrigerate both the whipping cream and the bowl beforehand, at least for two hours. They need to be really cold when you start whipping, so that they form peaks.
- Take the whipping cream in a large mixing bowl, and whisk away, until soft peaks form. This should take about 3-4 mins if you’re using an electric whisk attachment, and 6-7 mins if you are whisking by hand.
- Add the vanilla essence and condensed milk to this. Just whip for a minute until everything is incorporated evenly together. If not using electric whisk, you can even fold it in using a spatula.
- Transfer this to a clean and dry airtight container and freeze this for about an hour with the lid on.
- After an hour, the mixture will be partially firm. Now add the broken after eight pieces and scatter them evenly over the ice-cream. Mix well using a spoon.
- Freeze for 3 hours or until fully set.
- Serve cold.
TIPS & TWEAKS
- Do not over whip the whipping cream. It needs to form only soft peaks, not stiff ones. If you whip too much, the mixture will curdle.
- It is VERY important that both the bowl and the cream are completely cold before you whip. In fact, because I live in a really hot and humid place like Chennai, not only did I refrigerate the cream and the bowl, I also switched on the air conditioner in my room and whipped it in the room, not in the kitchen.
- Do not add the After Eight chocolate pieces before partially freezing the ice cream, because they will just sink to the bottom of the cream mixture. Freezing partially and then mixing the chunks will ensure that they are rippled and distributed evenly across the entire ice cream.
- You can add cooled and melted chocolate into the cream, while adding condensed milk. This will give you a rich and chocolatey After Eight ice cream.
- I did not feel that this ice-cream needed additional sugar, since the condensed milk makes this dish sweet enough.
- Dip your ice cream scoop in warm water every time you scoop out the ice cream, it will help you getting clean scoops.
a burst of flavor 