Tea Ice-cream

Glace au thé (tea ice cream) teaches one true thing before you touch the pan: strength comes from more tea, not more time. Brew the leaves hard and short, then strain them cleanly. A long steep extracts tannin, and cold does not hide that dry bitterness; it sharpens it.

The classical entry's brief instruction, "make the preparation in the usual way," assumed a pâtisserie where the custard formula was muscle memory, the batch was generous, and a salt-and-ice freezing pail stood ready. This version scales the liquid to one cup of tea and one and a half cups of boiled milk, holding the original two-to-three ratio exactly, while six yolks and 135 grams of sugar make the assumed custard explicit. The large batch and freezing pail were brigade scaffolding, so a saucepan and countertop churn replace them. The brief infusion, boiled milk, yolk custard, and churning are the dish, and they stay. One cook, one stove, one evening's work, with the freezer doing the waiting.

The finished glace au thé should be pale café au lait, softly dense, and fragrant the instant its surface begins to yield beneath the spoon. It tastes of tea first, dairy second, with sweetness holding the two together. The decisive step is the infusion: three minutes, then the leaves come out.