Cherry Ice Cream and Frozen Yogurt

Along with everything that’s late to bloom around here this summer, cherries came late and stuck around much longer than I anticipated. I just finished up the last batch of Bing cherries for this recipe. But this is not the end of the season for this recipe because I use frozen cherries as well as fresh ones. And I’ve included two recipes: ice cream and yogurt; each are very different in flavor, but great in there own way.

If you use Bing or other sweet red cherries, the ice cream will be sweet and mild in flavor. I prefer the cherries to be a bit tart for the ice cream so that it has a stronger flavor. For the yogurt, I prefer the sweet cherries since the yogurt already has a tartness to it.

When I use fresh cherries, I pit and freeze them so that the cream mixture gets cold faster, and then I put the liquid straight into the ice cream maker (without cooling the mixture in the refrigerator).

Tips If you eat chocolate, you’ll love the flavor of chocolate chips in the ice cream. I ground the chips down a bit through a coffee grinder until the chips are smaller and there’s some ground chocolate (almost like powder). I do this mainly because I’m a bit lazy about chopping up solid chocolate. If you want to shave the chocolate, you can also use a microplaner on a solid piece of chocolate, or use this technique for making irregular chips.

If you don’t have an ice cream maker, here is a great link on how to make ice cream without one.

Cherry Ice Cream and Frozen Yogurt

Cherry Ice Cream

2 cups of coconut or almond milk (or 1 cup of milk and 1 cup of heavy cream if you’re using cow’s milk)
1 1/2 cups of fresh or frozen cherries (sliced and pitted)
about 4 tablespoons of honey (or other sweetener; or add to taste)

Combine the milk and honey in a blender and whirl away.
Add the cherries to the mixture and blend. I like to blend the cherries until all the skin and everything else is ground down completely, but if you like cherry pieces in your ice cream then stop blending earlier.
If you used frozen cherries you can probably add the mixture to you ice cream maker now. If not, chill the liquid in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes or so.
Store in the freezer, and leave out at room temperature for 10 minutes or more to defrost and serve.

Cherry Yogurt

1 cup of yogurt (I use a combination of dripped half & half and heavy cream yogurt)
1 cup of fresh or frozen cherries (I like adding frozen cherries to it freezes faster)
about 3 tablespoons of honey (or other sweetener; or add to taste)

Combine the yogurt and honey in a blender and whirl away.
Add the cherries to the mixture and blend. I like to blend the cherries until all the skin and everything else is ground down completely, but if you like cherry pieces in your yogurt then stop blending earlier.
If you used frozen cherries you can probably add the mixture to you ice cream maker now. If not, chill the liquid in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes or so.
Store in the freezer (or consume immediately). From the freezer, leave out at room temperature for 10 minutes or more before serving.

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