Milky Tea Earl Grey Ice Cream!

Doo doo doo... Saturday morning... la la la... husband's already up early, working on a project... I rolllll out of bed... think about going for a run... haven't put contacts in yet so a little blind.

Hmm. Ice cream. 830am.

Okay!!!

Yes, I started making this ice cream in my pyjamas. It's a little bit time-consuming but worth it, like most things, don't you agree? I just love milky tea flavoured things. Tea things in general. Bubble tea? Love it. Tea flavoured cakes? Love. I start every morning off with a heavily-steeped bag of tea with soymilk. Perfect. Pumps me up. Today felt like the right morning to make Earl Grey Ice Cream... I call it Milky Tea Earl Grey...

This is a modified version of the Black Currant tea ice cream from The Perfect Scoop...! My beef with the recipes in The Perf Scoop is that they are just a little too sweet for me, and also too eggy... so I decided to experiment with the proportions to see what would happen. Turns out... DELICIOUS DELIGHTS happen!!! Perf Scoop calls for 5 egg yolks and 3/4 cup sugar. I used much less... see below!

{ Milky Tea Earl Grey Ice Cream! }

You will need:

3 cups 10% fat milk (called Half & Half in Canada)
1/2 cup white granulated sugar
2 egg yolks
10 earl grey tea bags (I used "Twinings" brand)
Ice cream maker. I have a Cuisinart silver box-type one. I forget the model name...

1. In a medium saucepan, heat 2 cups of the milk with the sugar and the 10 tea bags on medium heat, until low boil. Once lightly boiling (6-8 minutes or so... keep an eye on it!), remove from heat, stir it up and let sit and cool for 30 minutes.

2. Whisk egg yolks in medium bowl.

3. Check on milky tea mixture: squeeeeeze out the tea-ness from the teabags (be careful not to break bags!) and mix up the cooled milk. Discard tea bags.

4. Slowly whisk in the milky mix into the egg yolks.

5. Return this mixture to the medium saucepan and cook until thickened. Have you ever made a custard or cream pie filling, and suddenly you can feel the mixture thicken, and then you see it? You want to stir with a spatula the mixture on medium-high until it begins to thicken.

6. Whisk this into a medium bowl that has that last cup of milk that's hanging around.

7. Chill in refrigerator until cold, 1-2 hours. Go for a run at this point, or exercise! Then you won't feel bad about scarfing the ice cream when it's ready!!

8. Once mixture is cold, pour into ice cream maker and make according to ice cream maker's instructions. I set my timer for 20 minutes, checking on it every so often. It went for about 25-30 minutes and became wonderfully creamy.

9. Immediately remove from ice cream maker and into a yogurt container or airtight container. Freeze for a few hours to firm, or eat right away! Woohoo!

This ice cream is so milky tea yummy and fragrant with bergamot and lavender... you can make this recipe with any teabags- chai tea, orange pekoe... etc! May as well experiment with whatever you have kicking around. Also, because I used Half & Half instead of cream, and 2 egg yolks instead of 5, it's lighter, lower in fat and less eggy than the regular recipe, yet still tastes perfectly creamy.

Enjoy!!

xo Lyndsay