april 17, 2015

Ever open a carton of cherry ice cream thinking “Oooh…cherries!”, only to find vanilla ice cream with a few paltry specks of cherry? This ice cream is not like that.

Each spoonful has plenty of cherry to keep you happy. Cherries that are plumped overnight in red wine, slightly tart and swimming in an almond scented rich vanilla ice cream and just waiting for you to ooh and ah, spoon poised over a generous bowl, or over the whole container if you are so inclined.

This ice cream was created for the recent Late Winter Sunday Supper at Little House Green Grocery and served with a ganache-glazed chocolate stout cake. With so many local wines to choose, I settled on Gordonsville, Virginia’s Horton Vineyards Route 33 red, a mix of red grapes and described by the vintner as aromatic of cinnamon and spiced cherry. Sold.The dried cherries are the tart Montmorency variety. Need I convince you of the superior antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of tart cherries and red wine? That’s right; this dessert is for your health.

If you have an electric ice cream maker, the recipe is easy. As with Smoky Tea Ice Cream, there is no egg in the mix, but the added step of melting the sugar in a portion of the heated dairy will ensure a smoother final product.Whole milk and heavy cream give a good mouth feel. Be certain to drain the cherries well, twice, so the fruit is not icy from too much liquid.

If you’re like me, you don’t want to waste a bit of good ingredients. The soaking liquid can be made into a cherry red wine syrup for drizzling onto the ice cream, or as a syrup for turning seltzer into a pretty pink soda beverage. Just add sugar to the wine, simmer a few minutes and cool to room temperature.

red wine cherry ice cream drizzled with red wine syrup

Red Wine Cherry Ice Cream

recipe by Michele Humlan, The Good Eats Company

makes one quart                                                           

ingredients

one cup dried tart cherries (I used Montmorency)
one cup dry red wine
1 ½ cups whole milk
1 1/8 cup sugar
3 cups heavy cream
1 ½ teaspoons pure almond extract
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
optional for red wine syrup : ½ cup sugar

directions

1. In small, shallow nonreactive saucepan, combine cherries and red wine (shallow and wide enough for all cherries to be covered with wine), bring to simmer then give a stir and cool to room temperature before chilling in refrigerator at least six hours or overnight, either in pan or small bowl.
2. In different saucepan, combine milk with 1 1/8 cups sugar and stir over medium heat just until sugar is dissolved.
3. Off heat, add heavy cream and both extracts.
4. Transfer dairy mix to bowl and chill at least six hours or overnight in refrigerator.
5. Drain cherries in fine colander, reserving juice if desired to make red wine syrup.
6. Coarsely chop cherries, drain again and set aside.
7. Start electric ice cream machine and add dairy mix after stirring well.
8. When mixture starts to thicken after about 20-25 minutes, add cherries in small increments, noting that they are incorporating evenly into the thickening ice cream.
9. Mixture will appear nicely thick after another 5-10 minutes; transfer to container and freeze several hours or overnight to set.
10. For optional syrup: combine reserved red wine with ½ cup sugar in small nonreactive saucepan, stirring over medium heat until mixture comes to boil, then simmer about five minutes. Cool to room temperature and store at room temp or in fridge.