I can feel the heat outside the house as I am writing this post. My house is usually cool even during the summer, if I can feel heat, it is REALLY warm out. 🙂 Which is good, considering we didn’t really get much of a summer for the past month or so in Vancouver. Hot weather calls for yummy frozen treats! I was shopping at a tea shop a few weeks a ago (I am a tea lover), looking for a tea blend that would work well in my gelato. The tea expert recommended that I try their “Creamy Nut Oolong”. The tea description: “This high grade Chinese Oolong contains apple pieces, caramel bits, almond pieces, safflower, sunflower, mallow flower and natural aromas.” So I decided to give it a try. It turned out to be very delicious, the caramel flavour worked exceptionally well with the creaminess of the milk and cream in the gelato. I also used honey, its floral aroma also worked well with the floral notes in the tea blend. Ice-cream or gelato is actually very simple to make, as long as you have a good base recipe, you can flavour it with different aromas. I made small batch to try, my brother asked me why I didn’t make more. 😀

Ingredients:

Makes 2 – 3 servings.

• 2 tsp. of “Creamy Nut Oolong” tea blend
  
• 1 cup Milk
• ½ cup Whipping Cream (at least 30% milk fat)
• 2 Egg Yolks
• 2 tbsp. Granulated Sugar
• 2 tbsp. Liquid Honey

Method:

1. Place milk, cream and tea leaves in a small saucepan and heat on low heat for about 10 minutes.
   *We want to steep the tea, so don’t boil the mixture.
2. Whisk together the egg yolks, sugar and honey until foamy and light (see image above).
3. After steeping, pour the milk into the yolks and sugar mixture slowly and whisking at the same time.
   *Careful not to pour the hot milk into the yolk mixture all at once, we don’t want to have scrambled eggs. Also whisk as you pour in the hot milk.
4. Pour the custard through a FINE sieve, removing the tea leaves or any solid bits.
5. Return the custard to the pan on LOW heat, stir with a wooden spoon as the custard heats up.
   *NOTE: This step takes a bit of patience and you have to keep an eye on it because we don’t want to overcook the mixture and have solid lumps of egg yolk to affect the texture of the gelato.
6. Cook until the custard coats the back of a wooden spoon and draw a line with your finger to test if the custard has reached the right consistency (see image above). The custard will not be very thick but will be a creamy consistency. If you see lumps, remove the pan from heat immediately and cool mixture.
7. Cool custard and chill in the refrigerator for a few hours or overnight.
8. Churn the mixture in an ice-cream maker, following its manufacturer’s instructions.
9. Transfer the gelato into a seal-able container and freeze until firm.

My ice-cream maker is probably one of the simplest and inexpensive models that one can get. It consists of a moving part that has a switch to and a bowl that is to be frozen before the mixture is churned. I think freshly churned gelato actually tastes the best because its temperature is bit higher than freezer stored gelato (unlike the professional freezers in gelato shops). Its consistency is so soft and creamy. So if you are serving gelato from the freezer, you might have to “defrost” it for a short time in the fridge to get a softer texture.