A lightly sweet, wonderfully tart sour cherry ice cream recipe that highlights the flavors of fresh sour cherries beautifully. Jump to recipe.
Look, I owe you something savory, and I have a tagine, a fennel dish, and a tasty purslane salad all ready to go. In case you’re worried about our health, I promise we are happily eating our way through our CSA vegetable share.
But, fruit! I cannot get enough. I spent $30 on blueberries alone last weekend, and never even made anything. We’ve been enjoying the blueberries by the handful, just as they are. This year’s fruit season is going by fast, and fruits that usually hang out for at least a few weeks are disappearing quickly. The flip side of early fruit is that the season ends early too. So I just had to share this divine sour cherry ice cream with you before sour cherries disappear.
I made it for a casual gathering with a couple of friends on the Fourth, and it couldn’t have turned out better. This is a simple ice cream, without a custard base. Minimal sugar and lemon zest upped the tang quotient, and the summery taste of fresh sour cherries permeated each delicious bite.
If you can’t get your fill of sour cherries either, check out this sour cherry pie with lime.
A few notes on the recipe: after some feedback from readers and re-testing, I’ve upped the amount of sugar I recommend to a full cup. This recipe is meant to highlight fresh sour cherries, and as such, is lightly sweetened. Because the tartness of cherries can vary wildly, it’s also important to taste the mixture to make sure tart and sweet notes are in balance.
This recipe is a simplified ice cream and does not have a rich and creamy custard base. As such, the texture is still creamy and scoop-able, but more akin to sherbet than a traditional custard-based ice cream.
A properly chilled mixture is essential to the texture of your ice cream. I’ve given instructions for an ice bath which gets the temperature down much faster, but if you’re not in a hurry, skip the ice bath and chill overnight for best results. Also, I tried the recipe with booze and without. Without, the flavor is still fantastic, but a bit more crumbly – if you do omit it, just allow ice cream to soften up a bit before scooping.
- 2 1/2 cups sour cherries , pitted (sour cherries canned in water can be substituted, though the flavor of fresh is greatly preferred. Use roughly half the cherry water from the can, along with the drained pitted cherries.)
- 1 cup milk
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 1 cup sugar , go up to 1 1/4 cups for a sweeter ice cream or if using very tart cherries
- 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/4 cup vodka or kirsch if you have it
- 2 tablespoon vanilla extract
- zest of 1 lemon
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
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In medium sauce pan, combine 1 cup of cream, all of the milk, sugar, and salt. Stirring frequently, heat over medium heat just until a bit of steam starts to curl up from the mixture. Set aside until mixture has cooled.
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Meanwhile, puree 1 1/2 cups of the cherries. Set aside remaining cup of cherries for later.
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In a large bowl, combine cream mixture, pureed cherries, remaining cream, vodka or kirsch, vanilla extract, lemon juice and zest. Mixture may separate or curdle a bit, but things will be fine. (Before chilling, taste the mixture to make sure the tart and sweet flavors are in balance.) Set bowl over a larger bowl of ice water and set in the fridge to chill for at least 2 hours (longer without the ice bath).
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Process the ice cream according to your ice cream maker’s directions. Meanwhile, slice remaining cherries into paper thin slices, reserving any juice. Just as ice cream starts to set up (think milkshake texture), quickly scrape sides, and stir in sliced cherries and any reserved juice. Continue processing until ice cream has thickened up.
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Spoon mixture into a container and freeze for 2 hours, or longer for a complete cure.
Recipe updated July 26, 2017
Oh wow, this looks fantastic. I have such trouble finding sour cherries, but I’m on a mission this summer 🙂
If you are in Canada, co op grocery stores carry them in a jar and they are excellent!
I am not only completely in the mood for sour cherry ice cream (I have JUST discovered and fallen in love with sour cherries by the way) but I am also totally smitten with your photography. Perfection.
Wow, I love the way the chunks of cherries leave streaks across the ice cream. So pretty!
Love this! Quinn and I both adore sour cherries. The addition of liquor is intriguing!
I could totally dig into a bowl of this!!
I laughed when I read about the blueberries. I do the same thing. right out of the box — then I feel guilty that I didn’t make pancakes or muffins or ice cream sauce or a cake or a gazillion other things. Then I make ice cream from cherries I preserved last season. Oh the guilt.
That said, this ice cream looks damn good. 🙂
i love cherry ice cream, yum!
Hmmmm – this looks just perfect for the season. Can’t wait to give this a try for myself.
I love cherry ice cream. Cherry give fresh taste and milk made ice cream soft. best combination.
I tried making this but my milk must have been too hot and now I have cherry ricotta cheese. Any suggestions about what to so with it?
I would be inclined to make cherry ricotta cheese ice cream! But that aside, I’d probably serve it for breakfast along side some toasted corn bread or homemade oatmeal bread, also toasted. How yummy! Lucky you! (And I mean that!)
Great recipe! I added dark chocolate chunks when I stirred in the sliced cherries, perfection.
Hi Joanna, Genius! Sometimes I get really purist about my ice cream flavors, but chocolate and cherry are such a match made in heaven. I appreciate you dropping by and sharing the feedback!
I prepped my cherries for this yesterday afternoon. After puréeing them and being flummoxed by how liquidy it got, I realized I probably shouldn’t have used the defrosted cherries I’d picked and frozen. So now I’ve got a really thin mixture, which I haven’t yet added to my base. Any suggestions for saving my batch? Would cooking it down help? Or is it a goner?
Hi Joanna,
I’m sorry to hear you ran into trouble. I’ve never made this with frozen cherries, but I know they can get liquid-y once defrosted. I think cooking them down a bit could be a good option, but I also wonder if maybe you should just add a bit less of the fresh puree (like two-thirds of the amount). This recipe has a really nice fresh flavor with all the tart tanginess of the sour cherries, while I think cooking them would yield a deeper cherry flavor much more like a store-bought cherry ice cream.
Either way, I’d go ahead and two tablespoons more sugar, just to counteract the water content. And I’d definitely use the vodka or kirsch. Both those additions will ensure a scoopable, smooth ice cream once it’s frozen.
Please keep me posted!
whoa…..just made this and it is way too tart. most ice cream recipes call for at least 1 cup of sugar. When combined with the tart cherries, this recipe with only 1/3 cup is crazy tart. I am attempting to save it by taking 1 cup of the ice cream, mixing with 2/3 cup sugar in a pan, heating just until the sugar dissolves, placing pan in the freezer for an hour or two and hope to integrate it with the rest of the batch to sweeten it up a bit. I’ll let you know if it works!
Hi Mimi,
I’m really sorry to hear this recipe isn’t working for you. I do like my sweets a little less sweet than most. I think your salvaging technique may work, and I really hope it results in an ice cream to your liking.
I tested the recipe multiple times, so I’m not sure what the issue is – my guess is variations in the sweetness or tartness of the fruit. (I’m going to try and track down sour cherries, though they’re out of season here. If I do re-test, I’ll let you know!)
I am really sorry the recipe didn’t work out for you, and I appreciate you taking the time to let me know.
Do the reserved juices from the sliced sour cherries go in to the mix in the last step?
Hi There, Yes – you should add the juices with the sliced cherries. I’ve updated the recipe so that’s clear. Thank you!
When do you use the liquid from the can?
Hi Todd, You add half the liquid from the can at the very end, right before the ice cream sets up.
Can you use frozen sour cherries?
Hi there, I’ve had one reader try this and the mixture was very liquid-y. I haven’t tested with frozen and worry that because they’d need to be thawed and then re-frozen in the ice cream, it’s not an ideal use for them.
I just made this and have to say I am disappointed and feel like I wasted a lot of cherries! I think it is the base being eggless it is not very creamy tasting, and super sour (I used fresh sour cherries from the tree in my yard). Added 3/4 c. of sugar and vodka but texture is full of ice crystals, not smooth.
Hi Kate,
I’m so sorry that the recipe didn’t work out for you. I’ve waited so long to reply because I wanted to retest the recipe for myself. I hate knowing that you feel you wasted your beautiful cherries. My only thought is that the tartness of sour cherries really varies, and that’s leading to the overwhelming tartness in your recipe. With your feedback in mind, I’ve update the recipe to 1 cup sugar or up to 1 1/4 cups for very tart cherries.
As for the texture, I’m not sure what happened there. Mine has very tiny ice crystals, and is not as smooth as a custard, but is creamy and delicious tasting. This may be a matter of taste, but I’ve added notes to emphasize the difference in texture from a traditional custard ice cream.
Again, I’m very sorry the recipe didn’t work for you. I’ve tested this recipe many times, and again recently, and the only conclusion I can draw is that sour cherries really vary in water content and tanginess. Thanks for taking the time to leave your feedback – I appreciate you sharing your experience.
I had left over sour cherries from making a black forest cake and was trying to decide how to use them. I stumbled across this recipe and it sounded so yummy! I only had a cup left, so I pureed those. I added only 1/2 cup of the cherry juice to my cream mixture instead of at the end, to allow the flavours to blend, and the mixture I heated I let cool 10 minutes before adding to the other cream mixture to prevent any curdling. Due to only having 1 cup of sour cherries, I opted to add in 1 cup of chopped dark chocolate. I let the mixture cool in the fridge for 2 hours before putting it in my ice cream maker. I also used real kirsch, not vodka as I think the cherry flavour of the kirsch made it better. I have to say the taste was amazing! I think adding the cherry juice is so important, but you also don’t want to overpower the ice cream, which is why I only used 1/2 cup. I will try this again with more cherries as I want to have some cherry chunks in my ice cream. Since I am in Canada I can’t find sour cherries in a can, but the Co op grocery stores have sour cherries in a jar with juice, and let me tell you, they are DELICIOUS!
Made this recipe with cherries from by backyard. Absolutely delicious! Creamy tangy and beautiful texture and bright pink natural color. Thank you for the recipe!
I made this yesterday! It’s tart but it’s really good! Especially with kirsch. I wish now I’d added a bit of dark chocolate. Next time!
I was excited to use my own trees’ frozen sour cherries. The result is like eating lemon zest. A whole lemon worth of zest has erased the sour cherry flavor and sticks in my craw as though I had eaten lemon perfume. I also question what the point is of 2 tablespoons of expensive vanilla extract when all I taste is lemon. Additional sugar would not help. Everyone has different ideas about how much lemon makes something good. I find that using lemon to brighten foods results in things tasting like lemon. Even though I love lemon, I want sour cherry here.
The recipe sounds great and I loved that it did without a custard base – all the better to let the taste of the fruit shine through. But I’m wondering if the amount of kirsch given is right? My ice cream never froze – or even got to a milkshake consistency in the ice cream maker. After almost 12 hours in the (sub-zero Fahrenheit) freezer, it’s a thick milkshake consistency. If it’s not the kirsch, what could it be?