Mint Oreo Ice Cream (Jeni's Style)

In my last post I mentioned that I had recently started growing my own herbs, and that the final straw was the time I had to go to five different stores before I could find a little packet of fresh mint.  So naturally, one of the things I started growing myself was mint.  I knew before heading to Italy that the mint would grow rather quickly, but still, I was shocked by the monstrous size of it when I returned after just 12 days.

Newly acquired mint (July 17, 2011)

First week on my patio (July 19, 2011)

Two days before I left for Italy (July 26, 2011)

And upon my return to Italy:

The day after my return (August 9, 2011)
Can you say "mint's gone wild"?!?

I had expected to see a lot of mint when I got back - though not quite this much! - but because I knew I had to find a way to use a lot of mint quickly, and because I was finally going to invite a few people over for a little ice cream social, the idea had been brewing in my head for a few weeks to make some kind of mint ice cream after getting back from Italy.  I had already tried making the base mint flavor so I wanted to add a little something to it, but chocolate chips seem too...boring.  Fellow food blogger Suburghia Foodie had suggested something with honeydew or cantaloupe, but I was worried that the fruits would be too juicy for ice cream (though the mint-melon combo would probably be just perfect for a sorbet!).  The only idea I could come up with was Oreo cookies (not exactly that unusual, I know).  So, I set out to make the mint ice cream using the Backyard Mint recipe from Jeni's cookbook.  Last time I tried this recipe, I didn't have enough mint, so this time I made sure to grab a nice big bowl of it.  I steeped the ripped mint in the ice cream base for about 16 hours - longer than the 12 hours I did last time.  Then, I folded in eight crushed oreo sandwiches (or 16 cookies depending on how you look at it, with the icing removed) to the post-churned batter as I poured it into a container for freezing.

Mint Oreo Ice Cream

I really enjoyed the end result.  With my mint continuing to grow like crazy, I have a feeling I will be making this and other variations of mint ice cream pretty regularly!

This is part of a series of posts on recipes from or inspired by Jeni's Spendid Ice Creams at Home. The rest of the series may be found here.