Corn Starch Ice-Cream Base & Chai Tea Ice-Cream

I attended an Indian themed dinner party earlier this evening so I thought I’d have some fun with doing Indian dessert for it. At first I wanted to make cardamom ice-cream which I’ve been dreaming about since having cardamom gelato at Ottavio’s a few years back, cardamom ice-cream is also a popular Indian dessert. Perfect! Time to bring out the ol’ice-cream maker. Well soon enough one thing led to another and before I knew it my cardamom ice-cream became chai ice-cream.

I started with a recipe for ice-cream base which I got out of a Saveur magazine. This is a very interesting ice-cream base in that it doesn’t contain any eggs instead the recipe calls for corn starch oh and it’s super easy! Use this recipe as the basis of any ice-cream flavour you wish. Ice-cream is such a blank slate so let your imagination run wild. I was sceptical at first as the ice-cream turned into a bowl of gel once it cooled in the fridge, but sure enough a couple minutes in the ice-cream maker and voila decadent, creamy, dense, rich ice-cream. Everyone at the dinner loved it by the way!

Corn starch ice-cream base recipe:

1 1/4 cup heavy cream (I used whipping cream)

2 cups milk (I used 2%)

4 tsps corn starch

3 Tblsp cream cheese, softened

pinch of salt

2/3 cup sugar

2 Tblsp light corn syrup

First dissolve the corn starch in 1/4 cup of the milk to create a slurry. Set aside.

In a pot over medium heat combine the remaining milk, cream, corn syrup, sugar, and salt and bring to a gentle simmer. Simmer for 4 minutes. Then add the slurry and stir with a whisk. Simmer for 2 minutes. Mixture should be quite thick at this point.

In a bowl add the cream cheese. Pour some of the hot ice-cream mixture over the cream cheese and mix until combined then add the remainder of the mixture and stir.

Transfer the mixture to a bowl or a zip lock bag and chill in the fridge for a few hours or over night. If you’re in a hurry you could transfer to a zip lock bag, seal, then soak the bag in an ice bath till mixture has cooled. Once cooled pour into your ice-cream maker and process according to manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer to a freezer friendly container to let it set/freeze. This base recipe will be my go-to ice-cream recipe from now on. Its so quick and easy and there’s no fussing around with tempering eggs and the result is a beautifully dense and rich ice-cream.

Chai Tea Ice-Cream Recipe:

I modified the base prep method slightly for this recipe. I also tweeked one or two ingredients.

1 1/4 cup heavy cream (I used whipping cream)

2 cups milk (I used 2%)

4 tsps corn starch

3 Tblsp cream cheese, softened

pinch of salt

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup honey

2 Tblsp light corn syrup

1 cinnamon stick

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

5 cardamom pods, crushed

1/4 tsp ground cardamom

3 tea bags of black tea of your choice (you could use loose leaf tea too)

2 slices fresh ginger

6 black peppercorns

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Let the chai ingredients infuse the hot milk

Once set the mixture is quite thick

Let it do it’s thing in the ice-cream maker

Make the slurry and set aside. Add remaining milk to a pot on medium heat along with the ginger, cinnamon (stick and ground), cardamom (pods and ground), peppercorns, and tea bags. Bring to a simmer. Let simmer for at least 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and remove the tea bags before the tea starts to become bitter tasting (taste as you go if you want a stronger tea flavour let the tea bags sit for longer). Let the milk sit for at least 15mins to allow for some of the flavours to infuse into the milk. Pour the mixture through a sieve into a bowl. Once strained pour the mixture back into the pot and add the honey, cream, sugar, salt and corn syrup. Bring to a simmer for 4 minutes. Taste the mixture and add more ground cinnamon or cardamom if you wish.  Add the slurry and stir. Let simmer for 2 minutes. Add the mixture to cream cheese as described above. Stir in vanilla extract and chill the mixture. Pour the mixture into your ice-cream maker and process according to manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer to a freezer friendly container to let it set/freeze.

I was going to just use whole spices for this recipe but I found the flavour wasn’t as pronounced as I wanted it to be so I added ground spices too. You could try just whole spices or just ground or both. Recipes are just a guide so tailor them to suit your tastes and to create your own unique ice-cream.