Matcha Green Tea Ice Cream

Matcha (or maccha) is a well-known Japanese green tea that is traditionally used in tea ceremony. Nowadays, the finely-powdered form is widely used in all sorts of drinks and foods. Just name a few, soba noodles, bakery products, desserts, like mochi and green tea ice cream.

The powdered green tea is very handy to use. The easiest way to make green tea ice-cream is just add a few tablespoons of green tea powder in softened vanilla ice cream (use Häagen-Dazs' if you desire), stir and combine vigorously, then frozen for an hour or so if you like it a bit firmer. It’s pretty easy and “cool”, isn’t it?

Recently I often use my own ice cream maker as I don’t want to let it sit in my pantry without doing any job for me in this hot summer time. Last time, I shared an eggless version of banana ice cream. Here comes an easy version of green tea ice cream. If you don’t have an ice cream maker at home, you can still make some awesome ice cream as well. Some tips are to be shared in the notes below. The key to making flavourful green tea ice cream is to use the good quality of Matcha powder.

Ingredients:

• 400 ml milk, lukewarm
• 120 gm brown sugar or caster sugar
• 4 Tbsp Matcha powder (green tea powder), or to taste
• 200 ml whipping cream
• waffle sticks, for garnish

Method:

1. Beat whipping cream with an electric mixer until thickens, about 3 minutes.
2. Stir in sugar and green tea powder into milk. Mix well. Use a blender if you have, it’s much easier.
3. Fold in whipped cream and just incorporate. If the mixture is not completely mixed, it’s fine at this stage, as it would be mixed in an ice-cream maker later. (For making without an ice cream maker, please refer to the notes below)
4. Pour the mixture into ice-cream maker and freeze it according to the manufacturer's instructions, about 20 minutes.
5. Once the ice cream has been formed in the ice cream maker, it would be quite soft in texture. Transfer to an air-tight plastic container and place in the freezer for several hours until the ice-cream is frozen. Or you might like to have it after freezing for an hour or so.

Notes:

1. If you don’t have an ice-cream maker, you can pour the green tea mixture into a shallow container and freeze until frozen at edges. Remove from freezer and beat with an electric mixer. Pour back into container and re-freeze. Repeat 3 times. Then freeze until completely set.
2. The degree of intensity of green tea powder varies from different brands. So you have to adjust the amount of it you put in the cream mixture before freezing.