It’s no secret that we love tea here at A&C, especially the spiced kind. And even more specifically, we LOVE chai. While nothing beats a cup of hot chai, we’re always happy to discover new ways to add the fragrant spice blend to our diets.
This ice cream is a great way to expand the flavors of chai into the dessert realm. And if you stop by A&C tomorrow, we’ll have the perfect accompaniment for this delicious ice cream that will turn it into a show-stopping dessert. Here’s a hint:
Update 3/29: Try Carla’s delicious cinnamon hot fudge chocolate sauce on your chai ice cream. There’s A LOT of cinnamon in these recipes, though, between what’s in the ice cream and the chocolate. I would suggest either cutting the cinnamon in your chocolate sauce in half or not adding any to your ice cream recipe.
- 2 cups whole milk
- 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- 1 1/2 oz cream cheese, softened
- pinch of fine sea salt
- 4 chai tea bags
- 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
- 1/2 cup honey
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
- 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- pinch of ground clove
- Make a slurry by whisking cornstarch together with 2 tablespoons of milk in a small bowl.
- Whisk the cream cheese and salt together in a medium bowl until smooth.
- Place the remaining milk and the cream in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil and remove from the heat. Add the chai tea bags and let it steep for 30 minutes to an hour, until the flavors are prominent in the milk. If they're not strong enough, we can add more spices in a later step. Remove the teabags.
- Add the cream, honey, brown sugar, and corn syrup saucepan. Bring to a boil, cook for 4 minutes on a rolling boil.
- Remove from heat and whisk in the cornstarch slurry. Place back on the heat, and bring back to a boil. Cook until thickened (about 2 minutes), stirring often with a spatula. Remove from the heat. Add the vanilla.
- Taste the mixture to decide if you want to add any more spices to it. If so, add them and return the pan to the heat for a moment and whisk to combine the spices.
- Whisk the hot milk mixture into the cream cheese.
- Jeni suggests that you pour the mixture into a large Ziploc bag and submerge in an ice bath at this point. I'm usually way too lazy for this. Since there are no eggs in this recipe, we don't have to worry about cooling them down right away. I let the mixture cool in the bowl on the counter for about 30 minutes, whisking frequently. Then I cover the bowl and refrigerate it overnight, churning the ice cream the next morning.
- Freeze according to your ice cream machine's instructions. Pour into a storage container and freeze for at least 4 hours before serving.
- I love a really heavily-spiced chai, so I added more spices (listed as "optional" in the ingredients section). Your tea bags may be stronger than mine or you may not want as much spice in it. Taste the mixture after adding the vanilla and decide what you want to do. However, keep in mind that the flavors will dull a decent amount once it's frozen. My rule of thumb with ice cream in general is to make the flavors just a little bit to intense in the warm mixture so that by the time it freezes it will be perfect!
