And it was really good. And still IS very good since we somehow have some left in the freezer which I assume will be eaten tonight after a very large salad and some beets.
Thankfully when Bubba went on his death-defying cherry picking excursion in our neighbor's yard (I was busy picking the low hanging fruit, as always - lazy!), he/we managed to pick more than the four required cups for the pie recipe and had *just enough* left over for me to try my hand at cherry ice cream.
And, since I'm a genius (obviously. Why do you laugh?), I managed to reserve only the big black SWEET AS HELL cherries for the ice cream, so when I tossed them in the mix with some 1% milk (oh come on, I'm not using half and half - that's crazy talk), sugar, vanilla and lemon juice, I knew the combo was going to be extraordinary.
Well, I knew it would be once I added the chocolate chips anyway. And I just have one big tupperware thingee that I pour all my chips into, so there's a nice variety of sizes in there which I like in my baking because it makes it a little weird. And we like weird around here.
I will tell you that, if you have one of them shmancy ice cream makers (perhaps from a bridal registry because I think that's the only time people buy these things. Ahem. Like us.), this ice cream blends up like a dream. I defy you to find a better Black Cherry Chip ice cream at the supermarket. WILL NOT HAPPEN.
Just for the record though, the photos are not good. It was hot and we wanted to eat it and this was the only shot I could get off before Bubba ker-snatched the ice cream from view. And also before mine started melting.
You don't really mind though, do you?
Black Cherry Chip Ice Cream
Recipe of my own devising. I promise it's not gross.
Ingredients
2-ish cups of pitted black cherries, halved
1 quart 1% milk
Juice from 1 lemon
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup of mini and regular semi and milk chocolate chips
First, make sure the freezer bowl for your ice cream maker is frozen solid. Like, freeze it overnight in your freezer otherwise it'll just thaw and you'll have to do all manner of swapping around in and out of the freezer to get your ice cream to *take*. Go on, make your ice cream tomorrow if you haven't frozen it yet. Just pre-mix the ice cream according to the following directions and then pour the mess into your frozen bowl tomorrow at this time. K?
In a bowl (preferably with a nice spout), mix cherries, lemon juice and sugar. Then add the milk and stir thoroughly. Then add your vanilla and mix. Finally add your chocolate chips.
When you've got your freezer bowl spinning with the lid on, pour this mess through the hole on top and let it spin for about half an hour. It should look like soft serve at this point, which means it's the perfect moment to taste test. I promise, this is an official rule. Once you and your beloved are done taste-testing, toss it into the freezer to let it fully set-up.
Come back in a few hours and have yourself a cherry chip feast. This is especially good if you have some little chocolate chip cookies to throw on there. Because if you're using 1% instead of half and half or whatever full fat nonsense, you can have the cookies on top and they barely count.
Right?
2-ish cups of pitted black cherries, halved
1 quart 1% milk
Juice from 1 lemon
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup of mini and regular semi and milk chocolate chips
First, make sure the freezer bowl for your ice cream maker is frozen solid. Like, freeze it overnight in your freezer otherwise it'll just thaw and you'll have to do all manner of swapping around in and out of the freezer to get your ice cream to *take*. Go on, make your ice cream tomorrow if you haven't frozen it yet. Just pre-mix the ice cream according to the following directions and then pour the mess into your frozen bowl tomorrow at this time. K?
In a bowl (preferably with a nice spout), mix cherries, lemon juice and sugar. Then add the milk and stir thoroughly. Then add your vanilla and mix. Finally add your chocolate chips.
When you've got your freezer bowl spinning with the lid on, pour this mess through the hole on top and let it spin for about half an hour. It should look like soft serve at this point, which means it's the perfect moment to taste test. I promise, this is an official rule. Once you and your beloved are done taste-testing, toss it into the freezer to let it fully set-up.
Come back in a few hours and have yourself a cherry chip feast. This is especially good if you have some little chocolate chip cookies to throw on there. Because if you're using 1% instead of half and half or whatever full fat nonsense, you can have the cookies on top and they barely count.
Right?
that looks delicious. I've been wanting to get an ice cream machine maker forever. I think I may just buy one with the Williams-Sonoma gift certificates I've been hoarding since our wedding ( 3 years ago).
ReplyDeleteHoly crap--you can use 1% milk to make ice cream?? I enjoyed some homemade mint ice cream (from orangette.blogspot.com) which had not only WHOLE milk but also a coupla cups of heavy cream AND 5 egg yolks. Make no mistake, it was DELICIOUS but not exactly on the no-dairy, no-sugar cleanse thingy I'm doing. Neither is yours, but I'm going to make it anyway!
ReplyDeleteAnd I am one of those weirdos who bought my own ice cream maker--not our the wedding registry, thank you very much. We love our cuisinart model because the next best thing to pie around here is ice cream. Or both. We're not fussy.
I'm totally with Jen on this one. The most recent ice cream my fella made (this weekend, actually) was strawberry and had over a cup of whole milk and a cup of heavy cream and 6 egg yolks. It was a Cooks Illustrated recipe and, damn, it was the best thing ever. I guess the good thing is that it's so rich, you really don't need more than a tiny serving, so it lasts longer, too.
ReplyDeleteBut, then again, your ass is probably much smaller than mine.
Too bad my sour cherries wouldn't work nearly as well as your sweet as hell ones. It really looks gorgeous!
Ok, the last ice cream I made was nutella ice cream. Literally, it was nutella and evaporated milk (man I love canned goods). Yours sounds much healthier with your fruit and your milk. I am craving cherry ice cream right now!
ReplyDeleteAs for how I got my ice cream maker... this is kind of an embarrassing story, but because I like you, you get to hear/read it. So remember when McD's had Best Buy monopoly bucks? It was during their monopoly promotion, and pretty much you were guaranteed at least $1 in best buy bucks. So being the umemployed recent graduate, we went in hundreds of self addressed stamped envelopes and they sent us back hundreds of game pieces. What can I say, I love mail! Anyway, when it came down to it (and we had an excel sheet to track it), we made almost $300 a person for the $100 we each put in. And then I took those best buy bucks to best buy, and made the poor cashier count out all the little game pieces so I could get my fantastic ice cream maker. Poor guy. He thought I was a crazy lady.
Hmm, *sent* in, not went in. We sent in envelopes.
ReplyDeleteOh, that looks so yummy. Joe would love that. He loves cherries. The only problem we have is getting cherries at a reasonable price. Oh, and finding decent ones. I just bought some for $5/lb and they were terrible.
ReplyDeleteI think I need a cherry tree.
Yum-o that looks good. Have you tried making sorbet in your fancy schmancy machine? We make it all the time in ours when we can get good fresh fruit. It's to die for --and hardly no calories. By the way, you do know you can make frozen drinks in the fancy shmancy ice cream maker, don't ya? Just saying.
ReplyDeleteOMG Yum that looks good! One of my most favorite ice creams (always preceded by a couple Lactaid pills - way fun) is Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia. Yours looks like an EXCELLENT homemade reproduction of that... Wonder how well it'd work with a bag of frozen black cherries from the grocery store?
ReplyDeleteWow. I came back to report that I am currently making this ice milk stuff with fresh raspberries from my friend's garden. And then I saw Lynn's Nutella comment (WHAAA??? Oh my god. What is the recipe?? Is it seriously just Nutella and a can of evaporated milk?? BTW, LOVE Lynn's industrious obtaining of ice cream maker. Not crazy at all (and that should scare her I think it's NOT crazy).
ReplyDeleteTHen I saw Diane's "Yum-o" and I decided I must ask Diane and any other Finny reader (if you'll permit me, Jess) to REFRAIN from using Rachel Ray expressions on your blog AT ALL TIMES. For my sanity and everyone elses' sake.
Thank you.