Cherry Chocolate Ice Cream

By Melissa Pitts

With the first days of summer here I couldn’t resist taking out my trusty ice cream machine and make my first of many batches of ice cream. What better way to kick off summer than with cherry chocolate ice cream. I have fond memories of this ice cream and it had been ages since I last ate it. While I read that this summer would see a cherry shortage due to the crazy winter and spring weather, that didn’t stop me from making this ice cream, I just made with frozen cherries. Of course you can make it with fresh cherries if you have the pitting widget thing to take out all the pits, if not, thawed out frozen cherries are fine–just don’t use jarred cherries.

Note about the preparation. This recipe takes 2 days so don’t start this hoping you can eat it in a few hours, it’s just not the same!

Also, thanks to Abigail for taking these lovely photos- I feel like I could just lick the screen!

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Preparation Time: 30 minutes plus overnight cooling

Yields 6 servings

Ingredients:

• 2 cups frozen, thawed cherries with juices or fresh sweet cherries, pitted and de-stemmed
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons rum
• 1 cup low fat or whole milk, room temperature
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 cups heavy cream
• pinch of salt
• 6 large egg yolks, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 5 ounces dark chocolate, roughly chopped

Make Ahead Directions:

1. Sprinkle cherries with sugar and rum. Toss to coat. Refrigerate in juices overnight.
2. In a medium saucepan, heat milk, sugar, 1 cup of cream and salt over medium heat. Let the cool to a warm temperature.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk egg yolks. Slowly add about 1/2 cup of the warm milk mixture to the egg yolks, whisking constantly, to temper the eggs- make sure the milk isn’t too hot or you will scramble the eggs!
4. Pour the warmed egg mixture into the remaining milk mixture in the saucepan and whisk to combine. Return the saucepan to medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. Remove from heat and stir in the remaining 1 cup of cream being careful the cream doesn’t curdle. Add vanilla extract and stir over a bowl of ice water until cooled to room temperature. Cover tightly and refrigerate overnight.

Churning Directions:

1. After ice cream mixture and cherries have cooled overnight, follow the instructions for your ice cream maker. With about 5 minutes left on your ice cream machine, add the chopped chocolate. Once all of the chocolate is incorporated, add cherries, juice and all (if you don’t want a pinkish ice cream color, don’t add the juices). Transfer to a freezer safe container and freeze for at least 4 hours.