Chai Ice Cream

Using my Vanilla Bean Buttermilk formula, I mixed the milk, cream, sugars and boiled 4 minutes. Then I added these spices and infused on low for 1 hour:

• I had about 1 T cardamom (ground)
• 1 cinnamon stick broken in 2, so 2 2-inch pieces, roughly
• 1 whole nutmeg cut in 2
• 2T dried minced ginger
• a dash of pepper (didn’t have peppercorns)
• 1 Madagascar vanilla bean, cut in 2, seeds scraped out (lightly)

(did not use: cloves, star anise, fennel seed or allspice; did not have whole cardamom or peppercorns. These were also popular in other chai spice recipes/formulas)

The Kitchn had some ideas for spices in homemade chai here and Simply Recipes was my inspiration for infusing the milk.

As it turns out, “chai” is literally tea, so it’s an Americanism to use “chai” to mean the spicy mix we associate with a certain flavor of tea, possibly because that’s the name given the mix which is more accurately masala chai. That means researching the internet for a recipe or formula for the spices will yield a huge return of different spices and differences of opinion, although Kitchn opines that green cardamom is the one required flavor. Of course, although I love cardamom, I had only ground and even then, only about 1 tablespoon because I used it so much.

Print Recipe

Vanilla Chai Buttermilk Ice Cram

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Ingredients

• Spices: cardamom, cinnamon, 1 Madagascar vanilla bean (sliced, seeds scraped), whole nutmeg, dried minced ginger, black pepper
• 2 tablespoons black tea leaves
• 1 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 1/2 cup whole milk
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
• 2 tablespoons corn starch
• 2 ounces (5 tablespoons) cream cheese, softened
• pinch salt
• 1/2 cup buttermilk

Instructions

1

Mix the corn starch with about 2 tablespoons of the milk to form a slurry, and set it aside.

2

Bring the rest of the milk, heavy cream, sugar and corn syrup to a boil, for 4 minutes; turn burner to low.

3

Add the spices to the milk-sugar mix, and infuse over low heat for 1 hour*.

4

Whisk the softened cream cheese with salt in a separate, heat-proof bowl. I use vanilla salt.

5

Reheat the spicy milk mix to simmer, add the tea and infuse an additional 15 minutes.

6

Remove from heat and strain the spices out.

7

Bring the mix back to simmer and add the corn starch slurry, boiling until thickened, about 1 minutes.

8

Pour the mix into the bowl with the cream cheese and whisk to incorporate.

9

Add the buttermilk, whisking again to incorporate.

10

Chill before churning - I often put it in a ziplock back in a bowl of ice water for 30 minutes, or leave in fridge overnight.

11

Churn.

Notes

* Infusing: "over low heat" with the lid on was pretty much at boiling the entire time the first time, and with evaporation and what wouldn't go through the strainer, it was a smaller batch of ice cream. I increased the amount of milk and lowered the amount of buttermilk, still using about 1/2 cup more liquid to offset evaporation and straining. Also, I used a simmer mat to keep the mixture from boiling over. Then I actually strained the second batch twice - once in a colander to get the large pieces out, then again in another colander lined with 1 layer of cheesecloth to filter out tea leaves.