Secret Recipe Club October: Cherry Ice Cream

In my third month with the Secret Recipe Club (you can read all about it, and join here!), I was assigned to Simply Food, a vegetarian blog written by Nayna Kanaba (at least I hope it was the correct name I found!). 
Vegetarian food is a bit of a challenge to me, since I have a meat-loving husband (and I do also love meat myself) - but I was convinced that I could find something to incorporate into the usual meal plan, and was not dissapointed.
I thought about trying the Naan Indian Bread, or the Black eyed Beans in Tomato Gravy and several other things - but finally settled on the Cherry Ice Cream.
It is made with condensed milk, which I have used for ice cream several times before with great success, so I knew the result would be good - plus I had some canned cherries I would like to use, so ice cream it was.


Go visit Simply Food and find great inspiration for vegetarian food, and also check out the section about fruit and vegetable carving - there are some beautiful creations there!

Cherry Ice Cream:
- adapted from Simply Food

Notes:

- I used canned cherries instead of fresh ones - mainly because I had them, and because fresh ones are not easy to find right now. Also, I have an allergy that does not go too well with cherries, so I cannot eat the raw ones without my whole mouth itching. But next time, I will try using canned cherries of a better quality (like Selleberg) - the ones I used, where a bit bland and colourless.
- I halfed the recipe, but used more cherries than in the original recipe, because they didn't taste of quite as much as fresh berries
- Instead of boiling the cherries in sugar and water, I just blended the cherries and used a bit of syrup from the glas (which was made of water, sugar and glucose syrup). Because of this procedure, it is a very quick ice cream to whip up - from start to eating the first soft scoop, it will only take an hour, if you have an ice cream machine.


400 g canned or fresh cherries
2 tbsp + approx. 1 dl syrup from the glass
1 1/4 dl whipping cream
200 g sweetened condensed milk (½ can)
1 tsp vanilla extract

Blend the cherries with the syrup (if using fresh cherries, be sure to remove the stones!) Whip the cream until it is fluffy and mix it with the condensed milk.
Mix in the cherries and vanilla extract.
Prepare your ice cream machine according the manufacturer's directions and churn the ice cream until it is frozen. Transfer the ice cream to a plastic container, cover the ice cream with cling film (to avoid crystallization) and a lid, and place in the freezer for a couple of hours.
Use the remaining 1 dl of syrup from the glas to boil into a thicker syrup that can be used for decorating the ice cream when served.
The ice cream can be scooped straight from the freezer, so no need to take it out before you want to serve it.

Conclusion:

As already mentioned, the canned cherries were not of the best quality, and I am sure that fresh ones would have tasted better. But it still tastes really good, and has a nice consistency, as always when using condensed milk. Maybe it is a wee bit more watery than other versions I made, but I think that is due to the extra amount of cherries I used.
All in all, thank you to Simply Food for a very nice ice cream recipe that I would like to try again!

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