Here’s to July – the National Ice Cream Month! And what better way to celebrate the end of ice cream month and the tail end of cherry season than with a boozy Cherry Kahlua Ice Cream! You wouldn’t believe how addictively delicious this ice cream is, and that’s before you even get to the Kahula!
I’m sure many of you have stories about going fruit picking as kids. I am no different. I have some great memories of picking berries and cherries with my family in New Zealand. My sister and I would climb up the trees to get to the best cherries and compete with each other to see who ended up with more. It wasn’t as easy as it sounds though, since only two out of every three cherries we picked ever made it to the basket.
There are photographs of us smiling with fistfuls of cherries, red teeth and red lips and all, and red stains down the front of our shirts. My sister had this strange habit of getting “tipsy” after eating one too many and then giggle incessantly. And even though I always had plans for using the cherries in all kinds of baked goods, that almost never happened, since we would just end up eating them all before the cherries ever had a chance to serve a bigger purpose.
There was no cherry picking for Mr K and myself this year, so we waited till they started making an appearance in our local grocery store a few months ago. And as much as I wanted to just grab those fresh, juicy, sweet cherries and stuff my face full of them, I decided to practice a great deal of self-restraint and give these cherries the credit they deserved and use them in a fantastic recipe! Enter, Cherry Kahlua ice cream!
lots of delicious cherries swirled through
Kahlua is one of my favourite liqueurs and it’s one of those things that I look for a reason to use in my recipes rather than let the flavour combos come together organically in my head. Then again, I am a coffee junkie, so my opinion might be slightly biased. That boozy kick completely elevates the sweet, fruity notes of this ice cream and makes it dangerously addictive.
I think I did those beautiful cherries justice in the end though! What do you think? 🙂 I used Bing cherries for this recipe, but any kind of fresh, sweet cherry should work.
HOW DO YOU PIT YOUR CHERRIES?
If you have a cherry pitter, you’re a lucky duck indeed! If you don’t, do not sweat, there’s another way to pit those bad boys easily! Before I came across this method, I used to cut the cherry and sort of dig out the pit, making everything a “bloody” mess.
This way, it’s still a tiny bit messy, but not nearly as what it used to be for me, and a lot more fun too! 🙂
You will however need a frosting tip (with a round tip) for this pitting method. The tip should preferably be slightly smaller than the size of the pit. Place the tip on a stable surface, then place the cherry on top of the tip (the stem indent of the cherry) and gently push it down as you see below in the gif, and the pit pops right out. I covered the working area with thick plastic wrap before I started, in order to catch the juices and to collect the pits.
See? Easy peasy!
I added a generous 1/4 cup of Kahlua, to give this ice cream a wonderful boozy flavour with just a hint of coffee that perfectly complements and elevates the cherry flavour! However, the booze also means that it interferes slightly with the freezing process of the ice cream, so you will get a slightly softer ice cream that melts a little faster than regular ice cream.
But hey, what that means in the end though is that you will be just that bit more eager to eat the ice cream. Just as well, because this one tastes so freaking good!
- Fresh cherries (500g / 1.1 lbs, unpitted)
- 4 tbsp white sugar
- ¼ cup water
- 2 tbsp Kahlua (optional, you can use coffee instead for a non-alcoholic option)
- 1¼ cup of half and half or full cream milk
- 3 cups pouring cream or whipping cream
- 5 yolks
- 150 g sugar
- Cherry compote (that you prepared above)
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract or seeds from 1 vanilla pod
- ¼ cup Kahlua or cold coffee
- Pit the cherries and halve them. Combine all the ingredients (except Kahlua) in a saucepan.
- Heat until the liquid starts to simmer, and cook for 20 minutes or until the liquid turns syrupy.
- Remove from the heat, let it cool completely and then stir in the Kahlua.
- Keep in the fridge until needed. Best when chilled.
- Combine the sugar and milk in a saucepan and heat over medium heat until the sugar has dissolved.
- In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the vanilla. Slowly incorporate about ½ cup of the warm milk into the egg yolks, while whisking (tempering the egg yolks). Transfer the egg yolk and milk mix back to the saucepan with the rest of the milk and stir while heating over medium heat.
- Stir regularly to make sure the milk doesn't catch the bottom, and the eggs don’t curdle. If the mix is heating too fast, lower the heat. The custard is done when it is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon and you can swipe a clean path with your finger.
- Stir in the rest of the cream and Kahlua and leave it in the fridge to chill for at least a few hours or overnight.
- Churn according to your ice cream maker's instructions. During the last 5 minutes, add the cooled/chilled Cherry compote to mix through.
- Transfer to an ice cream tin/container (I used a chilled bread loaf tin) and leave it to harden completely for a few hours.
- Transfer the custard into a large flat-bottomed dish with a lid and keep it in the freezer.
- Check on the custard and whisk it with a hand-held beater at hourly intervals. Keep doing this until the ice cream hardens in the freezer. You might want to scrape the hardened sides with a fork first before you whisk your ice cream.
- When the custard has thickened and is mostly frozen, add the cherry compote and fold it in.
You will not regret making this ice cream this summer, I’m certain of that. The beautiful cherry chunks swirled through this ice cream, really add to the texture and the overall flavours as well. I was so tempted to keep eating this ice cream till it was all gone, but I resisted. I very quickly came to regret that decision, because once my husband got to it, he cleaned it up like he had never had ice cream before.
I have learnt my lesson. But hey, it’s just one more excuse to make this again.
You just cannot lose with this flavour combo.
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I have shared this recipe at Two Cup Tuesdays, Freedom Fridays, FoodieFriDIY, Fiesta Friday, and Saucy Saturdays.
NZ words for half and half and pouring cream please. Thanks
Hi Sunila
I have changed it on the recipe to reflect what’s available in NZ. Half and half is basically half cream and half milk, but you can use full cream milk instead for convenience. Instead of pouring cream, use single cream or double cream (Double cream will be richer and creamier).
Hope that helps!
look so delicious 🙂
Kahlua/ cherry is such a great combo! Love it!!
This is an amazing recipe. The flavor combo is so great! Beautiful photos, and LOVE your DIY cherry pitter! Can’t wait to try both the recipe and pitting technique 🙂
Yes please! I’ll take a scoop (or two or three)! That looks AMAZING!
Thank you Michelle! 🙂
What a great tip for pitting!! The flavors in this are totally working for me and I’m loving remembering the many twisted, slightly vampiric pictures we have of our kids after feasting on cherries. Another beauty, Dini!
I’m still drooling over this ice cream, it looks soooo good! Now I actually like coffee, I definitely need to start using kahula in my recipes – starting with this ice cream of course 😉
Loving your dishes too!
Lovely looking ice-cream and now seriously wanting to taste some kahlua! Big fan of alcohol in desserts! Your ice-cream looks really yummy.. 🙂
Not sure what I love more, your tip for pitting cherries or your delicious ice cream! YUM!!
What an awesome flavor combo Dini!!!! I love cherries so much! For some reason this year I have not been too impressed with them 🙁 But I am sure coupled with tequila in a creamy ice cream they would be juuuust fine! And I love the tip!
Thank you Mila! 🙂 Cherries are never as good as they straight from the tree… 🙁 but thankfully our local grocery store had some deliciously sweet and juicy cherries!
Tequila would be a very good choice too! I might have to try that next time 🙂
This is absolutely beautiful. The photos, the colours, the flavours, everything.
What a clever way to pit cherries! And this icecream looks oh so decadent and delicious
Oh this is so so perfect Dini!! I could do a whole tub of it right now…and I wouldn’t even share 😛 Love the tip on pitting cherries.. fab!!
I think I need to seriously just come live next door so I can sneak over and eat your food 😉 Lol, seriously though, that ice cream looks phenomenal!! Great tip about pitting the cherries!
I love homemade ice cream but rarely have the patience to make anything with cherries – I’m very tempted by this though.
That is the most delicious looking ice cream ever! I could seriously lick the screen – yummy:)
I can see that your ice cream is packed full of cherries. And I love the combination of cherries and coffee (and alcohol) so this wins for me. Cherry season is coming to an end in the UK so I’d better get my skates on and make this.
This looks ridiculously delicious! Cherries are one of my favorite Summer fruits and though I don’t drink, I’m sure some espresso would work just fine here. Churn on!
Thank you Kevin!! 😀 Cherries are one of my favourites too! Espresso will work beautifully (instead of Kahlua)! 😀
Home-made ice cream is the only way to get interesting flavours, and this is certainly one of those!
I agree Hilda! 🙂 I love trying to come up with some different flavours 🙂
Mmmmmmm- this ice cream look so GOOD.
It’s baking hot where I live, so I could really go for some of this. Thank you for bringing it to this week FF 😉
Thank you Jess! 🙂
Its pretty hot over here too 🙁 I make sure there’s a good stock of popsicles and ice creams in the freezer 😉