Double Thin Mint Ice Cream

So for Christmas, my little sister so graciously got me an AMAZING ice cream maker. I made pistachio gelato with her back in December, but I have been dying to use it since then. My freezer has been prepped with the bowl in it since early January. Second, I have Girl Scout cookies still in the freezer from last year that are calling my name saying things like: "Eat me! I am sooo good!". Third, I want to buy new Girl Scout cookies this year and you can't in your right mind buy new ones with old ones still lying around. So, I was surfing the web to find a way to use my Thin Mints and my new ice cream maker. I discovered this recipe on another blog, Erin Cooks. Her pictures of the ice cream are more enticing than mine if you really want to be sold on making this ice cream.

Double Thin Mint Ice Cream
Loosely adapted from the Ben & Jerry’s Sweet Cream Base #1 recipe originally published in the Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream and Dessert Book.
Makes 1 quart
2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
2 teaspoons peppermint extract
10 ounces of dark chocolate sauce
15 Thin Mints (one sleeve of cookies) crushed
1. Whisk the eggs in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Whisk in the sugar, a little at a time, then continue to whisk until completely blended, about 1 minute more. Pour in the cream, milk, and peppermint extract and whisk to blend. Begin freezing the mixture according to your ice cream maker’s manufacturer instructions.
2. As the ice cream starts to come together in your machine carefully pour in the crushed Thin Mint cookies. Then allow the ice cream to finish the freezing cycle.
3. In order to add a chocolate swirl to your ice cream do not add the chocolate sauce directly into your ice cream churn. This will make the mixture appear muddy looking. Layer the ice cream and chocolate sauce in a freezer proof container. Start with a layer of ice cream. Then smooth half of the jar of dark chocolate sauce on top. Add another layer of ice cream, and finish with the remaining chocolate sauce. Freeze the mixture until it has hardened completely. Then when you scoop out a serving you’ll have noticeable layers of cookie ice cream and gooey sauce.
The learning issue today will be simple and sweet. How did people come up with this stuff? The dessert is first traced back to the Emperor Nero of Rome. He wanted his slaves to bring back snow that was mixed with honey and fruits to form a dessert. The tales surrounding the rest of ice cream's popularization are quite varied and almost legendary. King Charles I of England was said to have a cook who discovered the dessert and the king bribed the cook not to release the dessert's secret so that he would be the only one to have the pleasure of eating the dessert. There are tales of Marco Polo bringing ice cream over from China. From all of this though, what I gather is that an ice cream like substance was probably discovered at multiple times in history by various groups of people.

Ice Cream is often though referred to as an "American dessert". The ice cream craze in America really took off after Dolly Madison served ice cream at the inaugural dinner in 1812 and later the American Nancy Johnson in 1843 invented the ice cream maker. With this invention, the first ice cream plant was opened in 1851 in Maryland by Jacob Fussell. From there...we all know what happened to ice cream. It became HUGE!
This particular ice cream recipe is simple and makes darn good ice cream. My barometer for ice cream is not a good for cakes though. I am little lactose intolerant and I can only eat small amounts of ice cream. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed this ice cream and give it 3.75 out of 5 stars. I would make this recipe again. Making ice cream with the ice cream maker...especially this recipe is easy as pie. However, I would make sure that I use Peppermint extract and not Mint extract the next time. No one at the super bowl party seemed to notice the slight spearmint initial taste. Mint extract is a combo of peppermint extract and spearmint extract. I thought you would not be able to taste the difference, but I could.