Cherry Ice Cream Recipe

I acquired a Cuisinart Ice Cream machine and have been itching to try it out.  Along comes this lonely bag of cherries sitting in my refrigerator looking for a purpose and Voila!  

The base recipe is from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food.  I used his Philadelphia style base, but substituted 1 cup of skim milk for one cup of cream.  Mark suggests that this style is best for suspending fruit into the ice cream.  I also chose to add the cherries at the end to keep them as large chunks per my preference. 

This ice cream was delicious and best serve as a soft serve fresh from the machine.  It was still very good from the freezer on subsequent tastings, but not as good as right out of the machine. 

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Cherry Ice Cream Recipe Serves : 6-8 -A little more than quart     Prep Time: 15 mins- includes pitting      Cook Time:  5 mins +25 mins freezing INGREDIENTS 3 cups pitted cherries, (I started with ~ 1 ½ pounds cherries) 1/8 cup sugar Lemon zest  and juice from about ¼ lemon 1/8 tsp cinnamon ½ tsp almond extract 3 cups heavy cream ½ cup sugar 1 egg Dash or 2 of vanilla DIRECTIONS Heat cherries and 1/8 cup sugar in skillet for 5 minutes until cherries soften and give up some juice.  Add Lemon zest and juice, stir and taste.  Adjust sweetness/tartness as needed with small amount of sugar or lemon juice (by ½ teaspoon full). Remove cherries; continue to cook juices until thickened.  Place syrup with Cherries.  Add dash of cinnamon and almond.  Chill well. When ready to prepare, mix cream, sugar and egg.  Place in ice cream maker and freeze as per manufacturer’s directions.  Add Cherries toward the end of freezing process.  You can add cherries upfront if you want a more blended /mashed cherry ice cream.  This method gives you big chunks of cherries in a sweet cream base.  Very elegant.