With just three main ingredients, this no-churn black tea ice cream is the perfect way to beat the humdrum of staying at home. It is indulgent, but all good ice creams are!
No-churn ice creams are easy to make and come out a little like gelato. The combination of freshly whipped cream and condensed milk keeps the texture relatively soft. Once the ice cream is frozen all the way through, you do need to leave it out a bit to soften before digging in.
Recipe
Ingredients:
2.25 cups/1 pint of heavy cream
6 bags of black tea (I prefer using a plain black tea, without
orange or any other additives, so that the tea flavor shines through)
1 14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk
1 pinch of salt (optional)
1 teaspoon of vanilla (optional)
Steps:
1. In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine 1.25 cups of the heavy cream with 6 bags of black tea. Don't let the cream come to a rolling boil, but let it gently simmer enough so that the tea starts to darken the cream -- this takes about 5 minutes. Remove the saucepan from the heat. Once the cream has cooled a bit, use a spoon (or your hands) to squeeze the bags of tea to get out the extra tea essence. (Just take care not to break the bags!) Refrigerate the tea-infused cream until it has completely cooled.
2. Pour out the condensed milk into the container in which you will freeze your ice cream. (I used a small 9" X 5" metal loaf pan.) Stir in vanilla and salt, if using.
3. Whip 1 cup of the remaining plain heavy cream with a mixer on the medium-high setting until you get whipped cream (about 2 minutes). Set this aside. Separately, whip the tea-infused heavy cream until it forms into whipped cream.
4. Gently stir and fold the plain whipped cream into the condensed milk until the two are just blended. Then, gently swirl in the tea-infused whipped cream. Cover the container with a lid or plastic wrap and pop it into the freezer.
5. Freezing tips: The ice cream should be scoopable, with a soft gelato-like texture in about 4-5 hours. (You shouldn't need to churn it, but if you want to give it a good stir after about 2-3 hours of freezing, it will help to create a softer texture.) The ice cream will firm up further after 5 hours-- if you are serving it after that, you'll want to leave it out for 10 minutes to let it soften first.
