I Heart The Mudflats

I drink hot chai with honey almost every afternoon, it stops me from snacking and stops me from craving sweet things that are bad for me.  I have been thinking for sometime that I really wanted to make a chai ice cream (yes this defeats the purpose of drinking the chai to avoid sweet bad for me things but it sounded so good anyway).  So yesterday I finally made it and its wonderful. I made this in an electric ice cream maker,  you can use whatever you have but the results and times may vary.

Char’s Honey Spiced Chai Ice Cream

(This recipe was created by me. Please do not repost or publish it without written consent from me or another admin on I Heart The Mudflats blog.  You can contact us by clicking here)

3 Twining’s of London Indian Chai Spice Tea bags (This is my favorite chai tea because it is well spiced)
1 cup whole milk
1/4 cup Sugar
1/8 cup Honey
1/2 tsp Vanilla Paste (you could substitute half a vanilla bean with the seeds scraped, but you need to remove the bean before churning)
1/8 tsp ground Cardamom
1 cup heavy cream

In a small non-reactive saucepan heat milk to simmering. Add the tea bags and let steep for a few minutes, stir in sugar honey, vanilla paste and cardamom. let sit on the counter till cooled to room temperature. Refrigerate at least 1 hour until really cold.

Set up ice cream maker. Remove the tea bags from the tea and milk mixture and discard them. Poor in the cup of heavy cream and the tea mixture into the ice cream maker and churn per the ice cream makers instructions. [My ice cream maker is kept in a chest freezer with a temperature of -20f, churning the ice cream to the correct constancy took about 15 minutes, but I would imagine if your ice cream maker is at zero degrees f (which is what most freezers attached to refrigerators are set at) it may take a bit longer.] You can serve it at this consistency right away, which is just slightly thicker than soft serve, or pack it in a plastic or glass airtight container and freeze until hard.  Makes 1 Pint.

This ice cream has a very mellow chai and honey flavor, it would go very well with ginger snaps, brandy snaps or candied pecans or almonds.

Enjoy

I have lived in Anchorage for 8 years now, and over the years I’ve seen my fair share of moose. One time, my husband was trapped inside his car because there was a moose in the yard. A couple weeks ago, we had to keep the kids from going home at the end of the day because a mother moose and her two babies were wandering around school grounds.

This year, on Halloween, I saw more moose than I’ve ever seen in one day. The first two, a mother and baby, had just finished eating my friend’s pumpkins and were bedded down in her yard.

Later that night, right before the first trick-or-treaters came to call, two moose, another mama and baby, were spotted across the street from my house eating pumpkins off my neighbor’s porch. It was dusk, so the pictures didn’t come out very well, but you get the idea.

From Mudpuppy Shorebird:

Location:Pisa, Italy
Here I was just trying to take a picture of the Leaning Tower of Pisa when this moose jumped in front of my camera….

From Mudpuppy Ghostdancer, in Wisconsin:
“Brian browsing the fall harvest”