This cherry ice cream recipe skips everything hard about homemade ice cream. There is no custard to babysit and no eggs to temper. No need to pit the cherries, because frozen cherries do the work. You blend the base, churn it, and get rewarded with the deepest, most cherry-packed scoop of your summer.
Frozen cherries are doing you a favor
Let me make one of your favorite summer treats easier. You do not need to pit fresh cherries to make this homemade cherry ice cream recipe. Frozen, pitted cherries work beautifully. And they have a secret. Freezing breaks down the cells inside the fruit. That means juicy cherries, more color, and more cherry flavor pressed into your base.
Fresh cherries work too, if you've got pitted ones on hand. But frozen works beautifully, and it's cheaper most of the year.
The Almond Extract is Important
You may think you can skip the almond extract and double the vanilla, but it is actually important in this recipe.
Cherries and almonds both have a flavor compound called benzaldehyde. It's what gives maraschino cherries and almond extract their scent. So a little almond doesn't taste like almond here. It tastes more like cherry. This is why your grandmother slipped almond extract into her cherry pie.
If you omit it, the flavor falls flat. It's still perfectly fine, but it tastes more like vanilla ice cream with cherries rather than cherry ice cream.
Keeping the Cherry Chunks Soft
I think that cherry ice cream should always have a little texture in the form of chopped cherries.
The challenge is that the fruit freezes hard.
The fix is sugar. This is why we toss the cherries with the sugar and lemon juice. The sugar pulls juice out of the fruit and lowers its freezing point. The chunks stay soft in the finished ice cream rather than hardening.
One more tip. Those macerated cherries make a puddle of juice. Don't toss it, because it is packed with flavor. Drain it off and stir it into your base.
A Word about Color
The type of cherries you use will impact the final color of your ice cream.
Sweet cherries, like Bing, will give you a classic dark cherry look. Tart cherries, like Montmorency, stay brighter and pinker.
Frozen sweet cherries that have thawed and given up their juices give you the richest, deepest color of all. This is because those broken cells release the most pigment.
And if you don’t like the color yours comes out, a drop or two of red food coloring is always an option.
Step-by-Step
Cherry Ice Cream
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups heavy cream
- 1 cup whole milk
- 2 cups cherries frozen or fresh and pitted, divided
- ¾ cup sugar add 2 extra tablespoons if using Montmorency or sour cherries
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
- ½ teaspoon almond extract
- ⅛ teaspoon sea salt
For the cherries
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
Instructions
- Place the cream, milk, 1 cup of cherries, sugar, vanilla, almond extract, and salt in a blender.
- Process until smooth. Place the mixture in the freezer for about 15 minutes. You can refrigerate the mixture overnight if desired.
- Coarsely chop the remaining 1 cup of cherries. Place in a bowl, and stir in a tablespoon of sugar, and lemon juice. Let sit while the ice cream base chills.
- Remove the mixture from your freezer and pour into the bowl to your ice cream maker. Add any juices from the bowl with the cherries.
- Process according to the manufacturer’s instructions, adding the cherries in the last 5 minutes of churning.
- Transfer to a freezer safe container, and freeze until solid.
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