Hey there, it’s been a while eh? The past few weeks I’ve had an unintended break from blogging which has actually been kinda great. Don’t get me wrong, I love this little space but I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself and it can all get a bit intense sometimes. Spending less time on social media and more time catching up with friends has done me the world of good.
Somewhat paradoxically, actually cooking without a blog post in mind has got my creative juices flowing and I’ve got so many recipe ideas that I can’t wait to turn into reality!
OK, let’s squeeze in one last summery recipe before August is over. The best thing about homemade ice cream is the vast array of flavour combos that are possible. Tart, sweet and every so slightly boozy, this cherry amaretto ice cream is one of the best.
I added an ice cream maker to my totally-neccessary-kitchen-gadget collection over 2 years ago so it’s kinda ridiculous that this is my first ice cream recipe.
If you don’t share my obsession with kitchen gadgets and therefore don’t own one, don’t panic, you can still make this frozen treat! Just pop the chilled mixture into the freezer and give it a mix every hour or so until frozen. A bit of a pain, admittedly, but this stops ice crystals forming (meaning you end up with a super smooth creamy ice cream). Yum!
If you could try any flavour of ice cream, what would it be? Hit me up with some new ideas!
Ingredients
- 300ml whole milk
- 300ml double cream
- 4 egg yolks
- 100g caster sugar
- 300g cherries, roughly chopped
- 75ml amaretto
Instructions
- Add the milk and double cream to a large pot over a medium heat.
- In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar. Stir into the milk/cream mixture and continue to heat gently for about 3-5 minutes.
- In a separate pan, heat the cherries and amaretto until soft. Remove from heat and blend using a hand blender. Stir the blended mixture into the milk/cream/egg mixture.
- Ensure ingredients are well combined then remove from the heat. Once mixture has reached room temperature, chill in the fridge until cold.
- Follow ice cream machine instructions to freeze. Alternatively, freeze mixture, stirring every hour or so until frozen.
Oh wow awesome flavour combo, maybe id try a lemon curd with pistachio flavour.
Oh that sounds really good actually!
Ooh, I can’t wait to try this for my dh’s birthday! He *loves* Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia (vanilla ice cream with huge black cherries and chunks of dark chocolate and Amaretto.
He got me an ice cream maker with the on board freezer compressor for my last birthday. We eat a lot of ice cream–I have a digestive system disease that limits the foods I can eat, but I can always digest ice cream. So we wanted to make our own because it’s so expensive, and we can use better ingredients.
We found a great Marzipan gelato, but it was sooo rich and fattening. So I figured out a lighter recipe. I blended 1 oz of marzipan with the sugar in my ice cream base recipe. I used Ben and Jerry’s base #1. (2/3 c. sugar 2 pasteurized eggs 2 c. light cream 2 c. heavy cream)
Then I whisked the sugar/almond mixture into the beaten eggs, then mixed in the light and heavy creams. For a lighter weight recipe, I only used 1 cup of heavy cream, the rest was light cream, but I whipped it into stiff peaks before folding into the egg and cream mixture*. (You could also sub milk for the light cream, but the extra water in milk causes ice crystals.) I also added a 1/2t of real almond extract on top of the 1t. of vanilla–artificial almond tastes metallic.
I really like Sonoma Baking Co. almond extract because it has bitter almond oil which gives it a nicer flavour. *The whipped cream won’t be thoroughly mixed in, but the freezer dasher will blend it well. The ice cream is extremely light and fluffy, but the unanimous opinion of all my family and friends is that the full flavored marzipan needs a lighter texture.
–we took the ice cream maker with us to visit family for Christmas and made several batches of marzipan and our other favourite, vanilla (Penzey’s Mexican and Madagascar) Our Breville ice cream maker is sooo easy to use–put the metal container into the machine, then the one piece plastic dasher, add the mixture to freeze, then pop on the lid. There’s even a pre cool feature so the container gets super cold so the mixture doesn’t have to chill in the fridge first.