Easy Paan Ice Cream
Apr 12, 2018
Refreshing Paan Ice Cream to beat the heat this summer! This ice cream has all the flavors of meetha pan and is sure to be your new favorite!
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy.
Easy Paan Ice Cream to beat the heat! This refreshing ice cream has all the flavors of meetha paan and is so refreshing on a hot day. And the best part? It’s surprisingly easy to make using a shortcut!
Sometimes the best recipes start with a shortcut. Do you guys agree to this? I mean delicious cake recipes starting with a boxed mix or your favorite pie recipe using a ready to go pie filling. Sounds familiar? I bet it does! While it’s best to make everything from scratch, sometimes we can take shortcuts and still achieve great results. Now I love making ice cream scratch but guys with this recipe you can make the best paan ice cream in 10 minutes only! Yes 10 minutes!
For those unaware, paan are betel leaves which are commonly consumed in South East Asia. People eat it with tobacco, areca nut but there’s also a version that’s popular as a mouth freshener/sweetener/palate cleanser. It’s called meetha paan (sweet paan).
For meetha paan, the betel leaves are filled with gulkand (rose petal jam), candied fennel, coconut etc. Meetha paan is very popular and you would often see street vendors selling it across streets in India. In fact it has gained so much popularity, that now you would see shops selling 70 to 80 varieties of paan from chocolate paan to strawberry paan to everything else that you can imagine!
Because paan is so popular, treats made with same flavor are also quite popular like my very famous Paan Coconut Ladoo and ice cream. But this Paan Ice Cream is special because you only need 10 minutes to make it! You only need to mix in everything together and freeze it, that’s it!
Now can you guys guess what makes my paan ice cream recipe so easy? Well I start off with store bought vanilla ice cream and then I add all the other ingredients to add the paan flavor to the ice cream and that is all. You have the ice cream ready in no time!
What all goes in this paan ice cream?
✓ paan leaves
✓ candied fennel
✓ dates
✓ gulkand
You may start with your favorite vanilla ice cream. I recommend sticking to the Indian brands, like kwality or vadilal. They will give the most authentic taste and you can find the 1-liter tubs at Indian grocery stores. Once you have the ice cream, you only need to wait till its softened, then whip it up and then stir in all the ingredients and put it back in the freezer again! I was not kidding when I said 10 minutes!
To add that refreshing taste, I also added few drops of mint essence but be very careful with this. A little bit of mint essence goes a long way so you only have to add few drops. You will ruin the ice cream if you add a lot, seriously I have done that. So always be careful while adding extracts like peppermint and almond. I also added few drops of green food color but that’s completely optional, you may skip it.
So next time the meetha paan craving hits you, try making this easy paan ice cream. This refreshing ice cream is sure to be a favorite this summer!
Method
Place your store bought vanilla ice cream on counter top for few minutes until it softens up and then transfer it to a large bowl. Whip the ice cream using a spatula.
Add chopped paan leaves, gulkand, candied fennel, mishri, chopped dates and mint extract. Also add few drops of green food color if you like.
Fold in everything together until well combined. Pour the ice cream back into the ice cream container/tub and freezer overnight.
Garnish the paan ice cream with coconut flakes and cherries (optional) and enjoy!
Easy Paan Ice Cream
Ingredients
- 1 liter vanilla ice cream store bought, preferably use kwality or vadilal
- 8-10 large paan leaves finely chopped
- 4 tablespoons gulkand also known as rose petal jam
- 2 tablespoons canided fennel
- 1.5 teaspoons mishri also known as sugar candy
- 3-4 dates chopped
- 1/8 teaspoon mint extract
- few drops green food color optional
- desiccated coconut for garnishing
- cherries for garnishing
Instructions
- Place your store bought vanilla ice cream on counter top for few minutes until it softens up and then transfer it to a large bowl. Whip the ice cream using a spatula.
- Add chopped paan leaves, gulkand, candied fennel, mishri, chopped dates and mint extract. Also add few drops of green food color if you like.
- Fold in everything together until well combined. Pour the ice cream back into the ice cream container/tub and freezer overnight.
- Garnish the paan ice cream with coconut flakes and cherries and enjoy!
Notes
- Add only few drops of mint extract. Too much of the the extract and the ice cream will become very mint-y so be careful.
- Gulkand might be all clumped together. If that's the case, make sure to break it up into small pieces before adding to the ice cream else you will get big chunks of gulkand at it won't be distributed well throughout. You may use your hands for doing this.
- I have used egg-free Indian brand vanilla ice cream here.Â
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Paan Ice Cream
