Cherry Pie Ice Cream

When I saw cherries at the grocery store last week, I practically hurdled over someone to get to them.  I've been watching like a hawk for them for several weeks now.  Back in March I had told a friend that at the first sign of cherries I would bake her a pie.  So we bought our first round of cherries, brought them home, and Evie promptly ate half the bag.

I had so few left over that for Memorial Day, I made roasted cherry brownies.  They were a big hit.  Had I not phoned it in with a box of brownie mix at the 11th hour, I might consider blogging them.  (How's this?  Roast some cherries on 350 for about a half hour.  Put them in a pan and top with your favorite brownie mix and bake about 10 minutes longer than usual.)

Anyhow, the second bag of cherries came around and I was determined to make pie.  With ice cream.  And somewhere along the way the pie became part of the ice cream.

Which, if you think about it, makes perfect sense, right?  Pie a la mode is such a simple pleasure right?  My favorite part of pie a la mode?  Pie crust and ice cream together.  Not necessarily the fruit filling, but the pie crust.  Tender, buttery, crisp contrasted with the sweet, soft, vanilla ice cream.   As easy as it would have been to make cherry ice cream, I really wanted bits of pie crust.

At first, I wasn't sure if I'd bake strips of pie crust and toss those in with cherry flavored ice cream, but that seemed like cheating.  Plus, I do love how the pie crust takes on the flavor of whatever filling it is cradling.   What could I do?  I made pie specifically so it could be cut up and folded into ice cream.  Sounds crazy, no?  Maybe.  But worth it.

I decided to do mini pies in my muffin tin.  It worked out well because I really only needed 6 mini pies for the ice cream and it left me with several mini pies, which can be frozen.  (Theoretically.  I say that as if we froze them and as if we didn't snack on them for the last few days.)  If I'd done a large pie, I'd just have a cut up pie mess.

While the pies baked, I got to work on the custard.  I used David Lebovitz's vanilla ice cream, which was amazing.  I did it exactly as his recipe states except that I didn't chill the custard overnight.  I let it chill for a few hours before I got impatient and tossed it into the ice cream maker.   I'm not sure if it mattered that I didn't chill it.  If it did, I really can't imagine this ice cream getting better.  It was so full of vanilla flavor.  The cherry pie filling was subtle and not overwhelming and the pie bits were everything I wanted them to be!

One thing I'd like to work on perfecting is the vein.  You know how everyone likes a vein in their ice cream?  Be it chocolate swirl, or caramel, the vein is something my husband and I fight for.   When I made the cherry pie filling, I strained out a lot of the excess liquid before filling the mini pies, so the juices wouldn't ooze out of the pies too much.  As it sat and cooled, it set up nicely, so I thought it would make a nice vein in the ice cream.  I added it in a stream as the ice cream maker churned and all it did was fold into the ice cream giving it a subtle pink color and a light cherry flavor.   Still incredible, but not what I'd intended.   I'll figure it out.  And I will make this ice cream again.  Or blueberry pie ice cream.  And in the fall, I'll make pumpkin pie ice cream.  And apple pie ice cream...   I could go on and on.

Cherry Pie Ice Cream
For the cherry pie:
I edited my usual cherry pie to make slightly less.  I used about 2.5 cups of cherries, but halved the rest of the ingredients.  It did come out a bit soupier than usual, but as I mentioned above, I pressed a lot of the liquid out.   2.5 cups of cherries yielded enough filling to fill 12 mini muffin tins lined with pie crust.  Once cooled, I quartered 6 pies for the ice cream.

For the vanilla ice cream:
recipe courtesy of David Lebovitz

1 cup whole milk
a pinch of salt
3/4 cup of sugar
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
2 cups heavy cream
5 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Heat the milk, salt and sugar in a sauce pan.  Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into the milk with a knife, then add the bean pod to the milk.  Cover, remove from heat and infuse for one hour.

Set up an ice bath by placing a 2 quart bowl into a larger bowl partially filled with ice and water.  Pour the cream into the smaller bowl.

In a separate bowl, stir the egg yolks together.  Rewarm the milk then gradually pour some of the milk into the yolks, whisking constantly as you pour.  Scrape warmed yolks and milk back into saucepan of milk.

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom with a heat resistant spatula, until the custard is thick and coats the spatula.

Strain the custard into the heavy cream.  Stir over the ice until the mixture is cool.  Add the vanilla extract (I realize as I type this that I forgot to add my vanilla extract!) and refrigerate to chill thoroughly, preferably overnight.

Remove the vanilla bean and freeze in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer instructions.  Once the ice cream has set, stir in pie pieces and reserved filling juice.
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