One of my favorite times of year is late spring when the cherries have started to ripen. I love getting a whole bunch of various cherries on a walk home (benefits of living in an agriculture forward country) and making things like galettes, pies, and especially this delicious wild cherry ice cream.
For this recipe you don’t need to use fresh cherries. You can easily use frozen since the final ice cream will be frozen anyways. But in the end, you can use what you want. I do suggest not using canned or jarred cherries in this specific recipe – but you can follow my Amarena Gelato recipe if you want to use canned or preserved cherries in a dessert!
If you are a chocolate lover, then you can make a cherry chocolate ice cream instead. This uses some high quality melted chocolate to make a custard and is more sweet and rich than a simple fruit forward ice cream.
Wild Cherries vs Black Cherries
Most people have heard of black cherry ice cream. It is very popular and for good reason. However if you are looking for a less sweet forward and more punchy fruit taste, then I love making wild cherry ice cream as I think it is a bit more refined.
Here, I’ll explain the difference between black cherries and wild cherries from a culinary perspective just to give you more information. If you want to skip this section click here and it’ll jump right to the steps.
Wild cherries, also known as sour cherries or tart cherries, are a type of cherry tree that produces small, bright red fruit with a sour taste. They are typically used for cooking and baking, and are commonly used to make cherry pie, cherry preserves, and other desserts where you add sugar (like ice cream).
Black cherries, on the other hand, are a type of sweet cherry tree that produces larger, darker fruit with a sweet, juicy flavor. They are often eaten fresh and are commonly used in salads, smoothies, and other dishes.
In terms of their nutritional content, both types of cherries are high in antioxidants and other beneficial nutrients, but black cherries tend to be slightly higher in certain vitamins and minerals, including vitamin C, potassium, and magnesium.
Overall, while both wild cherries and black cherries are delicious and nutritious fruits, they have distinct flavors and uses in cooking and baking.
How To Make Homemade Wild Cherry Ice Cream
What You Will Need
As with all of my ice cream recipes on Scoops of Delight, you need an ice cream machine. The exact style and brand does not matter too much but you do want one that is decent quality. While there are plenty of recipes for no-churn ice creams, I often find a properly churned ice cream magnitudes better.
Some other things you will need for this wild cherry ice cream recipe are:
- Mixing Bowl
- Whisk
- Pan
- Rubber Spatula
- Sealable Container
- Kitchen Scale (optional, but recommended)
Wild Cherry Ice Cream Ingredients
The ingredients for this wild cherry ice cream recipe are fairly straightforward. You do not need any hard to find ingredients, although I do use a tiny bit of citric acid to enhance the tanginess of the cherries. This is completely optional – don’t add it if you don’t like tangy ice creams.
- 250 ml Heavy Cream
- 250 ml Milk (full fat)
- 4 Egg Yolks
- 150 grams Sugar
- 2 grams Vanilla Powder (optional)
- 1/4 tsp (.8 of a gram) Citric Acid (optional)
- 1 tbsp Honey (I used unrefined Acacia honey, but you can use whatever you have that you feel will pair well)
- 300 grams Wild Cherries (I use frozen more often than not, as it is less work to squeeze the juice out, which is in a later step)
Making The Wild Cherry Ice Cream
In a bowl add the sugar, vanilla powder, citric acid, honey, and egg yolks. Unlike some of my other custard based ice cream recipes, this one creams everything together before heating. I’ll explain why I do this as we go on.
Whisk the ingredients together until you get a light and frothy mixture. Then trickle in the milk and cream while whisking until it looks like the photo on the right.
Next chop the cherries into small pieces and wring out the juice. You don’t really want to use whole cherries in this recipe as the moisture in them freezes differently than the cream base and can create a strange mouthfeel. The goal of ice cream is to be light and creamy and biting into a frozen bit of fruit detracts from that goal.
Slowly pour the strained and squeezed sour cherry juice into your ice cream base while whisking. You will end up with a light pink color which will darken as it heats up. Place the squeezed and chopped cherry pieces in the fridge – they will be added later.
Add the mix to a pan and put on low heat. Let it heat up while whisking constantly until it begins to steam and some of the water evaporates. Once you see bubbles like in the photo on the right turn off the heat – you don’t want a rolling boil for more than a few seconds.
You want the viscosity to be quite thick. Test it by running the back of a spoon through the custard and swipe a bit away with your finger. If the rest stays and doesn’t fill in the gap then you’ve done a perfect job. Pour the entire mix into a container and place in the fridge to chill completely.
Churning The Ice Cream
Pour the very cold custard base from the fridge into your ice cream machine. Churn according to your machine’s instructions. In the last minute or two add in all the chopped cherry pieces and let mix just until combined.
When everything is mixed in well pour the contents into a sealable container and place into the coldest part of your freezer. Depending on the quality of your freezer it can take anywhere from 4-24 hours to freeze completely. Mine personally takes around 6-8 hours to freeze, so I often make ice creams for dinner parties either the day before or the early morning of.
When ready to serve simply scoop a few balls into your serving dish of choice and enjoy!
Tips & Tricks
- Make sure to chop and squeeze the cherries. The excess water in the fruits will freeze differently and change the final consistency of the ice cream.
- If you want to make a black cherry ice cream you can essentially follow this exact same recipe. Just change the cherries that you use.
- The honey is a recommended ingredient as it balances the tartness of the cherries nicely, but if you aren’t a fan of honey you can leave it out.
- Want nuts? Go ahead and throw in some chopped walnuts or hazelnuts at the final mix for a bit of added crunch!
Wild Cherry Ice Cream
Ingredients
- 250 ml Heavy Cream
- 250 ml Milk full fat
- 4 Egg Yolks
- 150 grams Sugar
- 2 grams Vanilla Powder optional
- 1/4 tsp Citric Acid .8 of a gram (optional)
- 1 tbsp Honey I used unrefined Acacia honey, but you can use whatever you have that you feel will pair well
- 300 grams Wild Cherries I use frozen more often than not, as it is less work to squeeze the juice out, which is in a later step
Instructions
- In a bowl whisk together the milk, sugar, honey, egg yolks, vanilla powder and citric acid. Trickle in the milk and cream while whisking constantly until you get a frothy mix.
- Chop your cherries and squeeze out their juice by hand. Wring them out well so they do not freeze differently than the rest of the ice cream.
- Add the cherry juice to the milk mix and whisk it in. Place the wrung cherry pieces in the fridge to be used later.
- Place the milk mix in a pan and put on low-medium heat. Whisk constantly as it heats up and starts to steam. When the color has darkened and consistency thickened remove from the heat (see photos above for reference).
- Pour cherry custard mix into a container and place in the fridge to chill completely. You want it as cold as possible before you begin to churn.
- Place the cold custard mix in your ice cream machine and run according to the machine's instructions.
- In the last minute or so add in the cold cherry pieces and let combine. Then turn off the machine. Pour the mix into a sealable container and place in the coldest part of your freezer.
- When the ice cream is frozen you can scoop and serve it. Garnish with a whole cherry for presentation and enjoy!
Notes
Wild Cherry Ice Cream
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