It’s starting to look a lot like summer down here in the Southern Hemisphere, and that can only mean one thing – IT’S ICE CREAM TIME. The ice cream series is back (bitches) and I could not be happier about it.
This is my first batch this season, and it is scrummy. I chose cherries because they are one of the ultimate summer fruits. They produce an amazing sweetness and colour, and excellent drippy juice that stains your mouth and hands. Fake cherry flavour is one of my least favourite, real cherries however… I could eat them for days.
Also, look at that sweet reusable ice cream tub that my friend bought for me! It has a rather fetching pink lid and makes sneaking a spoon of this seventeen a couple of times a day so much more fun.
Scroll down for the recipe.
You will need:
1 cup of pitted cherries
3/4 cup of sugar
small squeeze of lemon
3 tablespoons of skimmed milk powder
2 cups of cream
Heat the pitted cherries and sugar in a small pan. Keep stirring to make sure the sugar doesn’t burn. Once all the sugar has dissolved and the fruit is soft, remove from the heat and add a small squeeze of lemon. Make sure not to skip the lemon! Adding a small amount of acid to your dissolved sugars will help ensure that they stay soft in the freezer and don’t turn icy. Let the syrup mixture cool and in a fresh container blitz with a hand blender, then strain.
Put the cream and skimmed milk powder in a large bowl, and whisk until the powder is well combined and not lumpy. Add the cherry syrup and mix thoroughly. This is when any leftover skimmed milk powder lumps will really show, you can just whisk these out.
The skimmed milk powder is important, as it gives your ice cream that soft, almost chewy quality. Whole milk powder will not work in the same way.
Thoroughly chill your mixture, then churn according to the instructions on your ice cream machine. This would probably work without an ice cream maker too, but will be a lot more dense and hard once frozen.
