If I had to boil everything in life down to just three things—three things I really believed in with my whole heart—I might settle on love, flowers, and ice cream sandwiches. Matcha macaron and jasmine green tea ice cream sandwiches, to be exact. With cacao nibs. And a whole lotta love, courtesy yours truly and the baking genius of Alana Kysar from Fix Feast Flair.
And, of course, also courtesy our favorite procurers of super luxe teas: Smith Teamaker in Portland. Lucky for us, and EVEN LUCKIER FOR YOU, Smith gave us a Green Tea Gift Pack of Jasmine Silver Tip and Matcha Powder teas to give away! So you can make this very recipe at home. Whenever you want. Probably multiple times this month.
‘Cause you’re gonna get hooked. ‘Cause these ice cream sandwiches kinda taste like waking up on a bed of blooming jasmine with a green tea latte in one hand and a bar of your favorite dark chocolate in the other. I know. It’s ridic.
Let’s rewind for a sec and talk about the sweetness of this collab with FFF, one of my favorite blogs of all time (for realsies). Alana and I met on Instagram (someone followed someone, an Insta courtship ensued, many likes were had by all), and soon discovered we grew up in the same tiny town on the slopes of Haleakala Crater on the island of Maui. Yah. How crazy is that?
And then Alana and her awesome boyf moved to LA, and we finally met IRL and became fast friends. Flash forward to us on a soul-searching mission to concoct the perfect recipe, one that epitomized our individual styles and unique Maui flair—hers of the Pacific Rim and mine of the hippy variety.
One morning over matcha green tea lattes in Koreatown, Alana and I realized jasmine green tea, matcha, and cacao were the perfect fusion of K&C x FFF. Particularly in macaron and ice cream form.
Smith Teamaker was as excited as we were to get in on the ice cream sandwich action. For full giveaway details, scroll to the bottom of the post and use the Rafflecopter window to enter. YAY.
The recipe below is for ice cream only. Once you get through ice cream prep, you’ll find a link to make Alana’s Matcha Macarons. Also, word to the wise: Make sure the mixing bowl of your ice cream maker has been in the freezer at least 24 hours prior to beginning the recipe.
Here they are: Jasmine, honey, and cacao-drenched matcha macaron ice cream sandwiches, with love from me and Alana!
To enter the giveaway, use the Rafflecopter goodness below (patience while it loads, grasshopper!). Entry to the giveaway closes at 11:59pm PT on Friday, March 27th.
Good luck, lovers!
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Ingredients
- 3 cups heavy whipping cream
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1/3 cup loose leaf jasmine tea
- ½ cup honey
- pinch sea salt
- 1 Tbsp . unflavored liquid chlorophyll for a natural vibrant green color
- 3 Tbsp . raw cacao nibs + ½ cup raw cacao nibs for coating sandwiches
Instructions
- Place 3 cups heavy whipping cream and 1 cup whole milk in a large stock pot over medium heat. Stir gently as it heats, so that you prevent a skin from forming over the top. A slight simmer is fine, but don’t let it boil.
- Once steam rises, add 1/3 cup loose leaf jasmine green tea. Continue to stir as it steeps for up to 10 minutes—remove from heat earlier if you want a less pungent flavor. Then remove from heat and strain mixture through a large fine mesh metal strainer over a large glass bowl. Whisk in ½ cup of honey until thoroughly incorporated. Let cool in fridge for 2-3 hours.
- Place 2 cups of the cooled mixture in a small sauce pan and turn heat to low. Whisking constantly, add in two egg yolks. Continue to whisk for 15-20 minutes, ensuring that nothing accumulates at the bottom of the pan.
- Once the custard has thickened to coat the back of a spoon, pour it slowly into the other mixture, whisking all the while. Add in a pinch of sea salt while mixing. Cover the surface of the mixture with plastic wrap and let cool in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
- When it’s chilled, remove from the fridge and pour the liquid through the strainer again, liquifying any bits of hardened cream. Then whisk in 1 Tablespoon of liquid unflavored chlorophyll.
- Once the mixture is cooled and a shade of green to your liking, remove ice cream freezing bowl from the freezer and set up the ice cream maker. Turn it on and pour liquid in.
- Churn in the ice cream maker until thick like soft serve, about 25 minutes. Do not over churn (there’s a lotta cream in this thing—you don’t want buttery ice cream!). In the last few minutes of churning, add 3 Tablespoons of cacao nibs.
- Transfer your frozen ice cream from the ice cream freezing bowl to an 8” x 11” baking tray or dish with at least a 1-inch rim, lined with plastic wrap. Top it with plastic wrap that is touching the surface of the ice cream. Freeze for 2-3 hours or overnight, until hard.
- Once hard, lift the slab of ice cream out of the baking dish using the plastic wrap and place on a cutting board. With a ruler, score the ice cream slab at 2-inches, both vertically and horizontally, so you create a slab of 2-inch ice cream squares. Once it’s scored, cut your grid. It’s ok if it’s not perfect—you can make adjustments when you’re assembling the sandwiches! Promise.
- Transfer the cut ice cream slab back onto the baking sheet (using its foundation of plastic wrap to move it), cover it with plastic wrap, and let freeze.
- Now head over to Fix Feast Flair for the Matcha Macaron recipe!
- Once your macaron shells have cooled completely, take your 2-inch ice cream squares out of the freezer. Follow tutorial below to sandwich each ice cream square between two macarons, pressing them lightly to seal.
- Place your pretty little baby sandwiches on a baking sheet lined with plastic wrap, and cover it with another piece of plastic wrap. Place in the freezer.
- Sprinkle ½ cup of cacao nibs on a plate in a flat strip. Once the cacao rolling surface is ready, remove sandwiches from freezer and gently dab the exposed ice cream surface onto the nibs so the sides of the ice cream sandwich are coated. Do as few or as many sides as you like.
- Then return sandwiches to your freezer for at least 1-2 hours, until the ice cream has hardened. They’re at peak ice cream sandwich glory after 24 hours in the frozen tundra of your ice box.
- Hooray! Blissful ice cream sandwiches are yours for the nom’ing. Now get yourself entered to win the world’s best jasmine and matcha tea!
