It’s June and the weather is unusually fickle, even for Yorkshire, England. It’s not unusual to have all four seasons in one day where Hungry Hubby and I live but I’m thrilled to see golden sunshine and feel it caress my cheeks, even for an hour or two at a time.
Sunshine, summer dresses and sunglasses must be accompanied by a cold and icy treat to keep you cool and make you think of summer holidays and today, that treat comes in the form of my cherry crumble no churn ice cream.
No stranger to social media, I was a late starter to Instagram. Now that I’ve found it, I’m thinking I may love it the most of all the platforms out there as it feels like you have total control over your feed and of course, mine is filled with food. Really beautiful food. I love how the bar is somehow raised on this pictorial based social media platform and it spurs me on to only share my best photos there.
Recently, I came across a pastry chef who had made a soft serve, piped cherry ice cream which really spoke to me – I knew Hungry Hubby would love it. I told her how much I loved it and asked if she’d be blogging it, but alas Natasha of Butte Baking felt it could not be made at home, it was something she’d made at work. Gauntlet thrown. So I made my own!
Now, my no-churn ice cream has the most beautiful texture – so creamy and smooth, not one ice particle in sight, but it isn’t truly a soft serve, Mr Whippy style ice cream. Soft scoop yes, pipeable? Not so much. Don’t let that concern you – it is wonderful to eat just as it comes. Hungry Hubby was so thrilled with it, proclaimed it the best ice cream he’s ever had (and we have eaten our fair share in our near 15 years together alone!) and is very sad that we’ve eaten it all.
With cherry season racing up upon us, it’s rude not to make extra cherry coulis to pour over as you serve along with a few reserved chunks of crumble. Yes, you need to make the coulis and the crumble separately but both are easy steps and you don’t need an expensive ice cream machine to churn for you – there is plenty of air whipped into the ice cream as you prepare it.
- 250 g fresh cherries
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 tbsp water
- 2 tbsp caster sugar approx
- 60 g plain flour
- 30 g cold butter cubed small
- 30 g caster sugar
- 2 large and very fresh eggs separated
- 50 g caster sugar
- Seeds of one vanilla bean or 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp Kirsch vodka, Barcardi or cherry brandy are all good alternatives
- 150 g double cream
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Make the coulis first. Taste the cherries to see how sweet they are then wash, stone and de-stalk the lot.
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Place in a small pan with the sugar, lemon juice and water and cook over a medium heat stirring regularly until they soften and give up their juices - about 10 minutes should do it.
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Leave to cool then blitz in a food processor (I use my Bamix) until thoroughly puréed and smooth.
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Make the crumble by rubbing the butter into the flour then stirring in the sugar. Leave some good sized pieces and place on a lined baking tray, baking for 10-15 minutes at 180˚C until pale golden in the middle (the fine pieces around the edges my catch a little - just discard them if they do). When cool, break up the pieces to chunks less than a centimetre square.
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Make the ice cream next.
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Start by whisking the egg whites until firm peaks are achieved then, whilst still whisking, pour in the sugar in a slow and steady stream. This is best with an electric hand whisk or stand mixer.
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Set aside then whip the double cream with the kirsch and vanilla seeds or extract until softly whipped only - don't turn it to butter!
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Add the egg yolks to the cream and beat in (don't worry that it slackens a little - just stop once there are no streaks left).
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Fold the egg whites into the cream and yolk mixture and transfer to a plastic pot/box of about 750ml capacity to freeze until semi-solid (about 1 hour).
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At this point, remove the ice cream from the freezer and ripple through about half of the cherry coulis and most of the crumble, trying not to turn it a homogenous pink.
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Return to the freezer for at least 3 hours to set hard.
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To serve, ripen in the fridge for approximately 20 minutes to soften enough to make light work of scooping and serve with the extra coulis and crumble pieces. Extra fresh cherries would be fabulous if you haven't eaten them all as you make this luscious ice cream.
Buy the freshest, free range if not organic eggs you can for this recipe.
Be prepared to alter the sugar for the cherry coulis if your fruit are more or less sweeter than mine - remember to be a bit more generous than you think as freezing dulls flavours and you need a little extra sugar to bring out the flavour of the fruit.
This post contains affiliate links, meaning I will earn a little commission if you chose to buy items I’ve advertised, helping me to bring you all these recipes for free!
Like this post? Then why not try these related recipes:
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- Cherry Bakewell Cake
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- Instant Pot Cherry Bakewell Cheesecake
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- Cherry Almond Buns
And here I am with 3 trees heaving with cherries, will definitely give this a go… Unfortunately double cream does not exist over here so will have to go with what I can get and see how it works 🙂
I did think of you up your cherry tree when I was writing this one up! You could try that trick of chilling a can of coconut milk over night in the fridge then whipping like cream instead – the flavours would be lovely together.