Chamomile Chardonnay Ice Cream
2 cups whole milk
1 tbs plus 1 tsp cornstarch
1 1/2 oz (3 tbs) cream cheese, softened
1/8 tsp fine sea salt
1 1/4 cup heavy cream
2/3 cup sugar
2 tbs light corn starch
1/4 cup dried chamomile flowers
1/4 cup Chardonnay
Mix about 2 tbs of the milk with cornstarch in a small bowl to make a smooth slurry. Whisk the cream cheese and salt in a medium bowl until smooth. Fill a large bowl with ice an water.
Combine the remaining milk, the cream, sugar, and corn syrup in a saucepan, bring to a boil over medium-high heat, and boil for 4 minutes. Remove from the heat, add the chamomile flowers, and let steep for 10 minutes. Strain the milk mixture through a sieve lined with a layer of cheesecloth, pressing on the flowers to extract as much cream as possible. Return to the saucepan and gradually whisk in the cornstarch slurry. Bring back to a boil over medium-high heat and cook, stirring with a heatproof spatula, until slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Remove from hear.
Gradually whisk the hot milk mixture into the cream cheese until smooth. Add the Chardonnay and blend well. Pour the mixture into a 1-gallon Ziplock freezer bag and submerge the sealed bag in the ice bath. Let stand, adding more ice as necessary, until cold, about 30 minutes.
Pour the ice cream base into the frozen canister and spin until thick and creamy. Pack the ice cream into a storage container. Freeze in the freezer until completely firm, at least 4 hours.
With this recipe I did a couple things differently. I thought I had loose dry chamomile, but I did not! So I used 4-6 tea bags in place of the loose stuff. It still worked great, and was very easy to strain because of that. Although the ice cream has a really rich flavor, it may end up even better with nicer chamomile. Otherwise, the ingredients stayed the same! However, I did not feel like making an ice bath. I just put everything in a bowl in the fridge and let it cool that way. It seemed to work fine for me! I wasn't expecting the ice cream flavor that I got, which doesn't really taste like either chamomile or Chardonnay. It has a really smooth light fruity flavor. All in all, great success! Now I want to try it with all the other absurd amounts of tea I have in my cabinet, because I'm sure most of them would also be awesome!
