Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you...the best ice cream I have ever made. Running with a theme from Eggbeater, I pitted a bunch of sour cherries, and froze them. Then I took the pits, wrapped them in a towel, laid them on a cutting board on another towel (those of you with driveways could try this outside), and bashed hell out of them with a hammer. That part was incredibly satisfying. The pits have a sharp, fruity bitter almond smell. I vaguely remember from the Penzey's spice catalogue that powdered cherry pits are a big thing in Hungarian cooking. Guided by David Lebovitz's recipe for almond cherry ice cream (in The Perfect Scoop), I infused the essence of the pit crumbles into some warm milk and sugar, then used the infused milk to make a creme anglaise, chilled it, churned it, and added the frozen cherries at the last minute. It was stunning, so all-American and so sophisticated, with the tiny crunchy cherries. It was also almost instantly gone, along with the Bart's chocolate coffee cake with chocolate swiss meringue buttercream that I made for Jill's birthday party. (Everyone else made delicious things as well--grilling two nights in a weekend is very very good.)
The sour cherry season is very short, but I just grabbed a few more pints of them today at the market, and will pit and freeze them in preparation for a reprise of this ice cream as soon as we get back. In the meantime, it's wedding time, and most of the household is dispersing for the holiday weekend. Tuesdays With Dorie will post tomorrow from my parents' house in Northampton, where like it or not, they're having apple cheddar scones.
1 comment:
Dear Katya - Now I know that you are a truly sophisticated and well brought up young woman - as you can talk sanely about infusing the essence of sour cherry pits in a most educated manner!
Love Dad
ps - next year I will save you all the sour cherry pits fromour montmerency tree
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