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masala chai ice cream

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Nik Sharma

Hey Friends, I’m a multi-award-winning and best-selling cookbook author and photographer.

masala chai ice cream

A chai flavored ice cream post is way overdue here. For one, I love making frozen desserts and two, I’m a huge chai drinker. Actually, I drink some sort of tea every day, even if it isn’t chai. Tea is calming and soothing and yes, delicious! There are so many things one can do with tea and with the wide array of flavors that keep coming out, I’m almost overwhelmed at times if I can even keep up. So instead of going too crazy, I’m sharing a simple and trusted way to make a chai ice cream.

chai prep
I infused the chai with the spices (masala), crushed green cardamom seeds and freshly grated ginger root. Of course, you can spice the chai with additional spices like I did in my Masala Chai Apple Cake but I added the masala (spices) to the chai just the way my mom does, her two special ingredients and nothing else. It made me a little nostalgic and brought back memories of drinking cups of hot tea while I dipped cookies into the fragrant hot milky brown liquid and watched my evening cartoon shows on the Cartoon Network. These days things are a little different, I normally just drink the tea and do the cookie thing occasionally, still watch tv, no cartoons though.
chai ice cream

I’ve adapted the basic ice cream recipe from Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home. Also, just a little note here, I normally don’t make chai with that much tea leaves in that small volume of water, I was going for a more concentrated flavor and did a reduction because the flavors and taste would ultimately get balanced and diluted out by the ice cream base. 

masala chai ice cream ginger cardamom
Here are some of my favorite posts that I drooled over this week,
  • Kimberly of The Year in Food made some amazing Cajun-spiced Sweet Potato Burgers that I need to make soon. 
  • Jennifer of Savory Simple made the most picture perfect fan-shaped gyoza stuffed with mushrooms. 
  • Marta of What Should I Eat for Breakfast made these killer green sandwiches that are topped with greens, pine nuts, cheese and poached eggs. How can you say no to that!  
  • Ashlae of Oh Ladycakes has quickly become one of my favorite vegan bakers, her dreamy raw citrus cakes are self-explanatory.
masala chai tea ice cream
masala chai ice cream

yields: 1 generous quart

ingredients

3/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon green cardamom seeds, freshly ground
1 inch piece ginger root, peeled and grated
2 tablespoons black tea leaves (Darjeeling tea – I specifically used orange pekoe) 
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon cornstarch
2 cups whole milk + 2 tablespoons
1 1/4 cup half and half
2/3 cup (5 1/2 ounces) sugar
3 tablespoons honey
1/8 teaspoon kosher sea salt
3 tablespoons (1 1/2 ounces) cream cheese

1. Add the water, cardamom and grated ginger to a small saucepan and bring to a boil on a medium-high flame. When the water begins to boil, add the tea leaves and reduce the flame to medium-low. Allow the water to boil for another 2 minutes, remove from stove and strain the liquid to remove the solids. Transfer the tea liquid back into the saucepan and reduce the volume to a little less than 1/4 cup by boiling the liquid on a medium-high flame. Remove the liquid from the stove and keep aside until ready to use.
2. Mix the cornstarch with the two tablespoons of milk to form a slurry and keep aside until ready to use. In a large thick bottomed saucepan, add the reduced 1/4 cup of tea from step 1, the 2 cups of milk, half and half, sugar and honey and heat on a medium-high flame. Bring the mixture to a rolling boil and cook for 4 minutes with stirring. Reduce the flame to a gentle simmer and quickly whisk the cornstarch slurry into the hot liquid.  Bring the mixture back to a boil and cook with constant stirring until the mixture thickens, this will take approximately 1 minute.
3. Place the sea salt and cream cheese in a large mixing bowl and whisk lightly until smooth. Add a little bit of the hot milk liquid from the saucepan and whisk lightly until smooth. Add the rest of the hot milk and whisk until the ice cream base is completely smooth. 
4. Transfer the hot liquid into a 1-gallon ziploc freezer bag, seal airtight and place in an ice cold water bath. Allow to chill for 30 minutes or until ice cold. Pour the ice cream base into the frozen canister of your ice cream maker and churn the ice cream for about 30 minutes or until the ice cream has come together and begins to come off from the sides of the canister. (Alternatively, follow the instructions of your particular brand of ice cream maker).  Transfer the frozen ice cream into a freezer safe container and layer the top of the ice cream with a piece of parchment paper, press gently to remove any trapped air bubbles and freeze for at least 4 hours before serving.

34 Responses

  1. Such a great idea to add masala chai spices to ice-cream! I am all for it – I gotta try this!

  2. What a great combination! I can only imagine the contrast between warm spices and cool ice cream. Pure genius!

  3. Oh, Nik. You're so kind! This ice cream looks dreamy and I will be certainly be giving it a go (with coconut milk, of course).. and I may or may not plop a big scoop of it between two soft snickerdoodles. 😉

  4. Oh this looks amazing, I just love chai, will have to break down and buy the ice cream maker first.

  5. Yet again Nick, the most stunning photography
    and delicious recipe to entice us. Your food is perfection and I love the play of props and that cup of 'tea!'

  6. Ohhh you read my mind! I have been meaning to experiment with chai popsicles for a while now. The ice cream looks divine……stunning pics as always.

  7. We have a local ice cream store, who makes their own product. Once in a while they have cardamom ice cream. It is soooooooo good. Since I am hooked on that spice, I am an easy sell. However your recipe makes theirs look dull in comparison. I suspect it's one of those dishes that I have to say Yum after every bite and drive everyone else who is around me nuts. So having said that, I should probably eat this ice cream alone. Laughing—-

  8. Oh this looks absolutely divine Nik! I'd love a big scoop of this right now as it's a beautifully sunny day here in Australia. And those photographs are nothing short of amazing.

  9. It's been waaaay long overdue that I click on your blog link from instagram. Love your moody photographs, always an inspiration 🙂

  10. I love that you love cardamom too. It's one of my favorite ingredients. I am thrilled you like this ice cream 🙂 hope you are having a great week.

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