Paan Ice Cream

Paan or meetha paan is a popular Indian refreshment enjoyed after a meal. It has a slightly minty, sweet, aromatic, and refreshing flavor. This is a delicious and easy paan ice cream recipe which has the same exotic taste as a meetha paan itself.

Paan is betel leaf and meetha paan is betel leaf with a filling of paan masala, gulkand, fennel seeds, and at times betel nuts. Meetha pan is also commonly called paan.

This paan ice cream is easy to make and has a refreshing flavor. It is going to please your friends and family. You can serve it at your next party, potluck, or any special occasion.

Jump to:

• Ingredients
• Instructions
• Substitutions
• Equipment
• Storage
• Top tip
• Related
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

Ingredients

To make paan ice cream at home you will need betel leaves. They are called paan or pan in the Hindi language. They are available in Indian grocery stores. Depending on the size, you may need about 5-8 betel leaves. I have used 5 pan leaves of about 6 inch length.

I like to use the dark green color, they are also known as Kolkata paan. The light green ones will work too but the ice cream will be lighter in color. Personally, I do not like to add food color, but if you want you can add a drop or two of green food color.

Another ingredient you will need is gulkand or rose petal jam. It is sweet in taste and so you will need very less sugar in the recipe. Dates also add sweetness.

When you chew a pan it is also slightly crunchy because of the paan masala. I have used candied fennel seeds but you can use sweet mukhwas which has other ingredients along with candied fennel seeds.

To make the ice cream base, heavy whipping cream and whole milk are a must.

Instructions

Rinse the betel leaves thoroughy well and pat dry them with a kitchen towel. In a high speed blender jar like Vitamix, add the milk, sugar, rose petal jam, salt, cardamom powder, dates, and betel leaves. Blend them on medium high speed until all the sugar dissolves and the mixture is fine.

Transfer the mixture to a bowl and then add the heavy cream. Gently stir it with a spatula to mix it evenly. The ice cream mixture is now ready. Let it chill in the refrigerator for about 1-2 hours. This will help absorb the flavors.

Transfer the mixture into the ice cream maker bowl and churn it for about 25 minutes. It is best to pre chill the bowl for 5-10 minutes in the ice cream machine before adding and churning the mixture. This helps reduce overall churn time.

After about 20 minutes, add the candied fennel seeds and continue churning for the remaining time until the ice cream is of soft serve consistency.

Transfer the ice cream to an ice cream container and freeze it for about 5-6 hours before serving.

While serving, you can garnish it with some tutti frutti, maraschino cherries, and candied fennel seeds.

Substitutions

There are only a few substitutions you can make in this paan ice cream.

• Candied fennel seeds - instead of candied fennel seeds, you can use mint flavored fennel seeds or sweet mukhwas (mouth freshener).
• Paan - I have used the dark green colored betel leaves but you can use the light green color too and the ice cream will have lighter color.
• Dates - if you do not have dates, you can use ¼ cup of sugar instead.

Equipment

I have made this paan ice cream in the 1.5 quart Cuisinart ICE 100 compressor ice cream maker. It makes 1 quart of ice cream with this recipe. Any other ice cream maker will work fine.

If you have a larger capacity ice cream maker using a freezer bowl or the salt and ice type, you can scale the recipe to adapt to your ice cream maker.

Storage

Homemade paan ice cream can be stored in the freezer for about a month in an airtight container. After that you may see some tiny ice crystal layer but you can still enjoy the ice cream.

Related

If you enjoyed this recipe, you may also like

Don't forget to rate the recipe by clicking the stars. Also, pin the recipe by clicking the "Pin" button, for your future reference.

📖 Recipe