I love ice cream. I don’t have a particularly active sweet tooth but if I’m going to have a treat, I’ll choose ice cream 9 times out of 10. Cherry chocolate chip ice cream is one of my favorites, and this homemade cherry almond chip version is the tops.
I decided it was finally time to figure out a stellar homemade version and pulled out my ice cream maker. (We’ve had an older version of this one for almost 15 years and it still works great!) It took me a bit of digging to find a recipe to work with for this. I knew I wanted chunks of cherry, not just cherry flavoring. And I didn’t want those chunks to be like biting into bits of ice throughout. Plus, I knew I wanted an ice cream with a custard base for smoothness, which was surprisingly hard to find with cherry ice cream.
So I went to my beloved Bi-Rite ice cream base and mixed in these muddled cherries. (I detest pitting cherries so I opted for frozen.) Then I threw in some bittersweet chocolate chips at the end, and also subbed almond extract for the vanilla.
It was heavenly.
I honestly wasn’t prepared for just how good it was going to be. My kids all declared it their favorite and have since requested it for birthdays. The almond flavor is also perfect as it complements the cherries.
Basically, it’s delicious, we loved it, we hope you make it, too!
Cherry Almond Chip Ice Cream
Equipment
- Ice cream maker
Ingredients
Cherries
- 2 cups frozen cherries, chopped
- 2 1/4 cups sugar
- 1.5 cups water
Ice Cream Base
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1.5 cups heavy cream
- 1.5 cups whole milk
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt
- 5 large egg yolks
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 1.5 cups chocolate chips
Instructions
- Cook the cherries. In a small pot, combine the cherries, sugar, and water. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer until soft, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and cool completely. Chill cherries in the fridge.
- Make the custard base. Heat half the sugar with cream, milk, and salt in small pot until just barely simmering, then reduce heat to medium.
- In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the other half of the sugar until light-colored with no white streaks. Once the cream mixture is hot, remove pot from heat. Slowly drizzle in one cup of the hot liquid into the bowl with the egg yolks, whisking constantly. Whisk together, then pour egg yolk mixture back into pot with the hot cream.
- Again place the pot over medium heat and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture coats the back of a spatula.
- Chill cream mixture completely in the fridge. Once cool, remove from the fridge and add in cherries (I like pouring in the syrup for a pink ice cream, but you can also drain them if you prefer), chocolate chips, and almond extract. Churn in ice cream maker.
