In the kitchen with juliyya: Black Cherry Ice Cream

juliyya’s Sherried Black Cherry Ice Cream

My cookies-and-cream companion yesterday was an eight year-old natural kitchen artist, as will be seen in a separate post. She was here the previous afternoon doing a craft project while I was cutting black cherries in half and excising the pip. (The cherry stoner doesn’t work on cherries the size of these.) She watched me squeeze some lemon and add some sugar to the pan before the mix went on the stove and it was time for her to go home.

After it cooked for a bit and taken off the heat, I added a teaspoonful of Paul Masson Rare Cream Sherry, resulting in what is to me a fantastic yet delicate flavor blend, and it also keeps the cherries from turning to rocks in the frozen ice cream. Sherried cherries. (I used a teaspoon of brandy in the Rainier Cherry Ice Cream.* The first time I experimented with Bing Cherry Ice Cream I used a bit of my grandmother’s Blackberry Brandy.)

Yesterday my kitchen companion stirred the fruit mix every 15 minutes as we were chilling it in the freeze to icy edges, then she stirred in the half and half, adjusted the dial up and down while carefully turning the mixing bowl to whip the cream, folded in the cream and stirred that every 15 minutes for an hour before we covered it, left it to freeze and forgot about it for a few hours. She learned a new way to make ice cream and boy oh boy, I like this kind! Her? Not so much. Cream sherry “tastes like too much yogurt in here.” Nevermind. Palates develop.