How to Make the Best Mint Ice Cream in 5 Easy Minutes

Mint ice-cream is the most popular flavour in our house, but I'll admit I am not a fan. While my husband and kids opt for mint, or mint choc chip, virtually every time they have an ice-cream, it's never been a variety I've liked. Well, all that changed when I decided to muck around with a new recipe and came up with this beauty.

I am not really one for inventing recipes so this isn't rocket science. I have a basic formula I use for most ice-cream recipes (except the condensed milk one - yum!) but the combination of this week's sunshine and fresh mint makes it a winner for summer.

1 part double cream
1 part milk
0.5 parts sugar
pinch salt
teaspoon of good vanilla extract

Mix all this in a blender until the sugar has dissolved. This is a great base mix that makes a lovely vanilla ice cream on it's own, or one to which you can add pretty much whatever you like. In this case, I used a bunch of mint leaves (you could chop them finely, but I just chucked them in the blender and let it do the work) and some white chocolate chips. Et voila! No artificial colours or flavours, just pure unadulterated creamy yumminess.

I don't have an ice cream machine. I put a bowl or metal dish in the freezer while I'm doing all the mixing, then whisk it every two hours or so until it's frozen. This stops ice crystals from forming and giving the ice cream that nasty gritty texture. It also means that things like chocolate chips are evenly distributed.

Raspberry and Chocolate Blondies

All this playing in the snow has worked up big appetites. The cinnamon roll cake I baked disappeared in less than 24 hours so I searched for something new to back to fill up the cake tin and found this recipe over on BBC Food. It calls for 150g of white chocolate and I only had 100g (less the bits filched while I was chopping it) so I adapted the recipe to suit what was in my cupboard. They don't look anywhere near as perfect as the BBC's, but they taste gorgeous and I can't imagine they'll last long

• 200g Stork
• 75g white chocolate , roughly chopped 
• 100g milk or plain chocolate, chopped
• 300g light muscovado sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 200g self raising flour
• ¼ tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 125g frozen raspberries 
• 1/3 bag of mini-marshmallows (optional)

Method

1. Grease and line brownie tin (mine is 9x13in) and preheat oven to 180C (160C fan forced) or Gas mark
2. Melt margarine. Take off the head and add chopped white chocolate. stir gently so it melts and mixes in nicely
3. beat sugar with eggs until light and frothy
4. fold in flour, sugar, vanilla and salt. 
5. pour in margarine mix and stir in gently with spoon or spatula
6. pour batter into tin and sprinkle over chocolate, raspberries and marshmallows evenly
7. bake 50 minutes and leave to cool in the tin

Gives around 15 squares.

These are wonderfully squidgy with the chocolate and raspberries sinking to the bottom and the marshmallows all gooey on the crispy top.

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