bad chef, good ice cream

I have a small, wonderful ice cream maker. I didn't buy it. It was a gift.
I also have Perfect Scoop, an ice cream book written by the incomparable David Lebovitz.

From that book, I recently made a batch of peppermint white chocolate ice cream with a couple of twists because I didn't have the proper ingredients (i.e., milk). It came out amazing anyhow.

6-8 ounces a bag of white chocolate chips

1 pint heavy cream

1/2 cup sugar

1/8 teaspoon peppermint extract

3 large egg yolks

1. Set the white chocolate in a large bowl and set a mesh strainer over the top.

2. In a medium-sized saucepan, heat the heavy cream, sugar, and peppermint extract.

3. Whisk together the egg yolks in a small bowl and gradually whisk in half of the warmed liquid, then scrape the warmed yolks back into the saucepan.

4. Cook over moderate heat, stirring constantly with a heatproof utensil, until the mixture thickens and coats the utensil. I'm not sure how long to do this for and I was concerned I took it off too early, even when there was a thin coat on my spatula.

5. Immediately pour the custard through the strainer into the white chocolate and stir until smooth. I had added a handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips in with my white chocolate chips, and they didn't smooth out. It worked out fine.

6. Chill thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. The half-melted semi-sweet chocolate chips will glob a bit at the bottom, but just scrape that in too. It will add a nice fine chocolate chip texture to the ice cream.

Your ice cream is not for presentation but for taste--light, creamy, minty, smooth, white chocolate and chocolate, it's delicious. But the mixture of the white chocolate and semi-sweet makes it gray and hideous. Just trust me on this, though. It's yum and a good way to hold off cravings for Haagen-Dazs's seasonal Peppermint Bark ice cream.