During our weeks in Japan, I had matcha ice cream every chance I got. We started at Nanaya Aoyama, a small shop tucked off the main streets of Shibuya, where matcha gelato is served in seven grades, from gentle and milky to dark and bitter. I ordered the level three with cherry blossom, the matcha rich beneath it. My husband went bolder with a four and a seven. Chloe took the softest, a level one.
We chased it through the rest of the trip — soft serve in Kyoto, again at a botanical garden in Kagoshima. The last scoop was at Amacha, a tiny Tokyo shop with a line of locals out the door, where the gelato rotates with the season — matcha, hojicha, strawberry black tea. We came home with little tins of matcha picked up along the way. A few days after returning, I made my own, scooped into the cutest little ceramic cups from Kyoto, to keep the trip close a little longer.
Variation
To make hojicha ice cream, replace the matcha with 2–3 tablespoons hojicha powder and add 1 teaspoon vanilla extract with the custard. Where matcha is grassy and green, hojicha is toasty and warm, with notes of caramel and cocoa.
Matcha Ice Cream
Description
1 cup (250ml) whole milk
Pinch of salt
3/4 cup (150g) granulated sugar
2 cups (500ml) heavy cream
2-3 tablespoons high-quality matcha, sifted
5 large egg yolks
Ingredients
- Heat the milk, salt, and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Remove from heat.
- Pour the cream into a large bowl. Sift the matcha over the cream and whisk vigorously until completely smooth and free of lumps. Set a fine-mesh strainer over the bowl.
- In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks. Gradually pour some of the warm milk into the yolks, whisking constantly. Scrape the warmed yolk mixture back into the saucepan.
- Cook over low heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom with a heat-resistant spatula, until the custard thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon and reaches 170°F on an instant-read thermometer.
- Strain the custard into the matcha cream. Stir over an ice bath until cool, then refrigerate until thoroughly chilled, preferably overnight.
- Churn in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer to a container and freeze until firm.
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