July is National Ice Cream Month, and I have decided to feature a few outstanding ice cream recipes. Even though it has been a mild start to our summer in the Bay Area, I have been testing out quite a few ice cream flavors. Nothing makes me happier than seeing the smiles on my children’s faces, happily devouring our homemade ice cream. This Cherry Ice Cream is no exception, providing a scrumptious treat, big smiles, and sweet memories.
Fresh, Juicy Cherries Make This Recipe Special
Two weeks ago our family went cherry picking in Brentwood, California. It’s about 1-hour drive from San Francisco, and there are many orchards and farm fields in the area. This was the 2nd year we went cherry picking with our friends and their children and we all had a great time. The joy of gathering the essential ingredient for this recipe — ripe, juicy cherries — was a shared experience that made this treat even more special.
Making Memories While Supporting Local Farms
The cherry season usually falls in May and June, so we were late this year, picking in the last week of June. Several cherry farms had already closed for the season, but we were able to find a few that were still open. It gets hot in this area, so you might want to start picking fruits earlier in the day (we started around 9:30 AM), especially if you have small children. Our cherries were $3 per pound, and we also went peach picking right after — they were $1 per pound. It’s the best way to get the freshest produce and also a great way to support local farmers. It was hard to stop ourselves from gobbling up all the sweet black cherries, but I made sure to save some for this recipe. Unfortunately, we did not have enough extra cherries for baked goods, like the to-die-for Cherry Clafoutis I made last year.
My Favorite Things About This Recipe
Collecting cherries, pitting them, and whipping up the recipe means fun for my whole family. Simplified ingredients mean this recipe is a snap to make. You won’t even need eggs, as this recipe does not have a custard base. This recipe’s base is vanilla ice cream, and the heavy cream combined with the fresh vanilla bean makes it oh-so-creamy and rich. This version of cherry ice cream requires only a half hour of prep and cooking time and sets up nicely in just one day.
Ingredients You’ll Need
Heavy (whipping) cream Whole milk Sugar Diamond Crystal kosher salt Vanilla bean Pure vanilla extract Cherries (pitted and quartered)
How to Make Cherry Ice Cream
Here’s a quick overview, but you’ll find my step-by-step tutorial in the Recipe Card.
Tips That Will Save You Some Work
A cherry pitter is a great investment; they are not expensive, will last a lifetime, and make short work of an otherwise tedious job. An ice cream machine makes short work of churning up this delicious treat. Theoretically, you could adapt this recipe to churn it by hand (you would need to lower the sugar and switch to sweetened condensed milk instead of heavy cream). An ice cream machine is so much faster. Before tackling this recipe, make sure that the bowl for your ice cream maker has been in the freezer for at least one day. Freezing this ice cream in two smaller airtight containers (rather than one large container) means the ice cream will set up even faster—if you cannot wait a full 24 hours.
More Summer Desserts to Enjoy
Best Cherry Bars with Brown Butter Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream Green Tea Ice Cream Japanese Strawberry Milk
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