Chocolate Cherry Vanilla Ice Cream

By carvalhohm

Ingredients

• 30-40 fresh sweet cherries, whole and de-stemmed
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons bourbon (optional)
• 1 cup milk
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 cups heavy cream
• pinch of salt
• 1 vanilla bean
• 6 large egg yolks
• 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 5 ounces semisweet (60%) dark chocolate, roughly chopped

Details

Adapted from tideandthyme.com

Preparation

Step 1

Preheat oven to 450° F. Place whole, de-stemmed cherries in an oven safe roasting pan or dish (I used a glass pie pan).

Sprinkle with sugar and bourbon. Toss to coat. Roast at 450° for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally and keeping a close eye to make sure the sugar doesn’t burn. Once fruit is soft, remove from oven and cool. Pit the cherries and slice into quarters. Refrigerate in juices overnight.

In a medium saucepan, heat milk, sugar, 1 cup of cream and salt over medium heat. Split vanilla bean in half, scrape seeds into the warm milk mixture and add used bean too. When milk is warm, remove from heat, cover, and let steep for 30 minutes at room temperature.
Pour the remaining 1 cup of cream into a large bowl. Set a fine mesh strainer on top and set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk egg yolks. Slowly add about 1/2 cup of the warm milk mixture to the egg yolks, whisking constantly, to temper the eggs. Pour the warmed egg mixture into the remaining milk mixture in the saucepan and whisk to combine. Return the saucepan to medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. Remove from heat and pour through the mesh strainer into remaining cream. Add vanilla extract and stir over a bowl of ice water until cooled to room temperature. Cover tightly and refrigerate overnight.
After ice cream mixture and cherries have cooled overnight, churn in your ice cream maker according to the instructions. While the ice cream is churning, heat chocolate in 15 second intervals at 50% power in the microwave, stirring between intervals, until melted smooth. With 5-7 minutes left to churn, start drizzling the chocolate very slowly into the ice cream mixture. Once all of the chocolate is incorporated, add cherries, juice and all. Transfer to a freezer safe container and freeze for at least 4 hours.