Frozen Treats Challenge: Chocolate Cherry Ice Cream

Saturday, August 04, 2012

Coldstone Creamery used to have a flavor combination I loved that was made up of chocolate ice cream, brownies, fudge swirl, and cherry pie filling. It’s no longer on the menu, but you can still get them to make it for you. But when you can make your own using fresh, local cherries, why would you bother?

I didn’t know what to expect when I made this Black Forest ice cream recipe from Kitchen Simplicity. Most of the time when I include fruit chunks in my ice cream, it freezes solid and turns into fruit ice cubes. Apparently, the key is to candy the cherries. It makes sense. I mean, the key to keeping popsicles the right bite-able consistency is sugar, so why not the same for fruit? And let me tell you: this ice cream is fantastic. It’s rich and fruity and has great mouth feel.

Candying cherries (recipe for this is also over at Kitchen Simplicity) is simple, and you get the added bonus of having about a cup of cherry syrup leftover. What can you do with cherry syrup? Well, it turns out quite a few things. It makes a nice addition to a variety of cocktails, for starters. And then there are these ideas:

• Add it to milkshakes and smoothies
• Use it to make cherry sauce for pork chops or chicken
• Crush ice and use it as a sno-cone flavoring
• Mix with balsamic vinegar and olive oil to make a cherry salad dressing

The chocolate-cherry ice cream is a bit of a process, I admit. Candying the cherries and letting the dry, making the ice cream base and chilling it, melting the chocolate to pour into the batter when it freezes in the ice cream maker . . . but it’s well worth the effort. And if you don’t have an ice cream maker, the batter would make excellent popsicles, with or without the addition of cherries and chocolate ribbon.