Cherry Ripe is one of my favourite chocolates so when summer arrived and it was time to make some ice-cream, and I was given a box of fresh cherries by CherryHill Orchards, I knew that I had to make my own version of this flavour combination. The result? This recipe for chocolate, coconut and cherry ice-cream. There are a few different ways that you can go about making this – some people like to boil down the cherries and turn it into a syrup that infuses all of the ice-cream, but I prefer to keep the cherries intact, for both textural variation and the maintenance of some of that freshness. Bottom line, it’s a really delicious ice-cream that captures the best of all of the ingredients.
Preparation Time: 30 minutes / Cooking Time: 15 minutes + 1 hour churning / Makes 2L
Ingredients
- 300g fresh cherries
- 400ml milk
- 800ml cream
- 150g white sugar
- 10g cocoa powder
- 20g cocoa nibs
- 150g 55% dark chocolate
- 30g desiccated coconut
- 10ml tokay/topaque/brandy
Method
- Pit and quarter the cherries. You should have ~275g once done.
- Place all of the ingredients except the coconut into a large saucepan and stir gently on a low heat until lukewarm.
- Place the mixture into the fridge until cold.
- Pour the mixture into your ice-cream machine and add the coconut.
- Once it’s a thickshake-like consistency, transfer into a container and put into the freezer for at least two hours until it’s got the texture of ice-cream.
Notes
The cocoa nibs aren’t a necessity, but they do add some extra richness and textural variation to the recipe.