Matcha Ice Cream

Another torturous two weeks of exams are over, and there's not much to report back from my months of absence, in terms of food anyway (as I haven't been venturing into the kitchen much). The most exciting thing that's happened is that I bought sheet gelatin for the first time (yay!)- something I've wanted to buy for a while but have never known where to get it from.

It turns out that if I'd been looking hard enough, it wasn't actually that hard to find as Harris Farms stocks it.....Not that I knew of it's existence near my uni (and it's literally a 5 minute walk) until my friend, who's only been in Sydney for a couple of months, notified me of it and the fact that they have gelatin leaves :) I really ought to explore my own city more!

Interestingly enough, the week after I bought them, Aldi started stocking gelatin leaves too.....

Another new ingredient to my pantry is green tea powder- something I know I definitely did not look hard enough for. I've been sort of wanting to buy green tea powder ever since I started this blog (some 4ish years ago!), specifically to make green tea ice cream, and have never really 'found' it despite the fact that probably every Asian supermarket stocks it. That, and the fact that I've been told plenty of times which specific Asian supermarket you can get green tea powder from and I still didn't manage to find it.

I'll have to explain though- I keep looking for it in the tea section, but they put it in the Japanese section!!

So once I finally got my hands on a packet of this stuff, the first thing I made was green tea ice cream (surprise surprise)!! I used my usual ice cream recipe, substituting the fruit for green tea powder mixed with water, and the results were quite good, though I found the ice cream to be a bit too bitter for my tastes. But I really dislike tea (yes-even green tea) so it might be a personal thing- most other recipes I've looked at so far have roughly the same amount of green tea powder.

I'll definitely be tweaking the recipe soon-ish to make it more suited to my tastes so look out for matcha ice cream part 2 in the near future ;)

Matcha (Green Tea) Ice Cream
3 tsp green tea powder
3 egg yolks
110g sugar
300mL milk
300mL cream

1.Mix the green tea powder with about 3 tablespoons of water to make a thick paste (you might need to add a little more hot water if it's not making a paste).
2. Put the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl and whisk together until pale and mixture leaves a trail when the whisk is lifted. Slowly add the milk into the egg mixture, stirring with a wooden spoon. Transfer to a saucepan or a double boiler and cook over low heat for 10-15 minutes, stirring all the time, until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. Do not allow the mixture to boil or it will curdle. Remove the custard from the heat, mix in the green tea paste (from step 1) and leave to cool for at least 1 hour, stirring from time to time to prevent a skin from forming.
3. Whip the cream until it holds its shape.
4. If using an ice cream machine, fold the whipped cream into the cold custard, then churn the mixture in the machine following the manufacturers instructions. Alternatively, freeze the custard in a freezer container, uncovered, for 1-2 hours, or until it begins to set around the edges. Turn the custard into a bowl and stir with a fork or beat in a food processor until smooth. Fold in the whipped cream. Return to the freezer and freeze for a further 2-3 hours, or until firm or required. Cover the container with a lid for storing.

Note: I've only made this recipe using an ice cream machine- if making manually without a machine, you might want to have a look at some other instructions on making ice cream without a machine as I get the feeling that mixing the frozen mixture once will not result in a very creamy ice cream! ;)