Fresh Sour Cherry Crisp with Sour-Cream-Brown-Sugar Ice Cream

Is that enough "sours"??

The sour is, in my opinion, what makes this combo.  It's just a little something different from your typical sweeter fruit crisp with vanilla ice cream... not that there's anything wrong with traditional, and I may blog about our all-time favorite fruit crisp recipe later.

Either of these recipes is well worth making on its own.  Sour Cherry Crisp is awesome because it's so perfectly tart and you get to use beautiful sour cherries (you may need to call around; we found ours at a local farm, but Whole Foods probably carries them).  High-end vanilla ice cream will do the crisp justice just fine (for the record, I strongly believe that Haagen-Dazs "Vanilla" is the best store-bought vanilla ice cream available).

The "Sour Cream Brown Sugar Ice Cream" is also a decent standalone.  It's a delightfully rich, not-too-sweet take on vanilla that pairs perfectly with any fresh berries or any other crisp.

Together, these recipes make for an unbeatable, somewhat unique experience.  My husband isn't as prone to hyperbole as I am but he's declared this combo the "best crisp-like-thing he'd ever tasted."  

Sour Cherry Crisp

2 cups pitted sour cherries (see below)
3/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp flour
optional:  a few squeezes of fresh lemon juice 


3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats (oatmeal)
1/2 brown sugar
1 stick butter (room temp or slightly softened in microwave)
1/2 cup shortening
optional:  several dashes cinnamon


First, rinse and pit the cherries.  I just used my thumbnail since they lose their shape when you bake them, but you can google "how to pit sour cherries" if you care to get fancy.  


Preheat oven to 375.  Stir cherries, 3/4 cup sugar, and 2 tbsp flour until combined (lemon juice too if you're adding it).  Pour into 8x8 baking or pie dish.  In another bowl, combine remaining ingredients and use a fork or pie cutter to cut them together until crumbly.  Spoon on top.  Bake 45 minutes.

Gorgeous sour cherries.

Photo Credit:  Food Gawker

Sour Cream Brown Sugar Ice Cream
(recipe from Sally Sampson's "Ice Cream of the Week")


1 1/2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
6 tbsp brown sugar
2 egg yolks, room temp
3/4 tsp vanilla
1 large pinch kosher salt
1 cup sour cream


Place the milk, heavy cream, and 2 tbsp of brown sugar in a small pan and cook over low heat, whisking from time to time, until warm.


Place the egg yolks, vanilla, and salt in a small metal bowl and whisk until completely mixed.  Add 1/4 cup of the warm milk mixture to the eggs and slowly add more while you continue to whisk until it's all uniform.  Eventually, return all ingredients to the pan on the stove and heat through until it just begins to thicken.  The recipe says not to boil but I actually let it get steaming for a bit and boiling on the edges if I didn't constantly stir it, because I needed to kill any salmonella from the eggs since I'm pregnant.


Pour mixture through a medium fine strainer into a metal bowl and discard any remaining solids (not necessary, but nice if you have such a strainer).  Set aside until it reaches room temp (refrigerate to speed along if you like).  Once room temp, add the sour cream and stir well.  Cover and refrigerate until chilled.  Transfer to your ice cream maker and churn until thickening  When it's beginning to come together but not yet hardened, add the remaining 4 tbsp brown sugar and process for about 5 more minutes.  You want to keep the specks of brown sugar if you can.

Photo Cred:  Desert Candy.

Photo Cred:  Desert Candy.

Blueberry Ice Cream: You've Never Had It Before.

Unless you had it homemade.  Anything else you had was really just vanilla ice cream with blueberries.  Just look at the color!!!

I don't know how to do color enhancement.  This is real.

I can now see why it (tragically) has to be that way.  It would cost ice cream shops a fortune to really do this dish justice, because it requires a LOT of blueberries.  Still... I feel hurt.  Betrayed, even - some of my favorite places in the world have been duping me out of good food (and antioxidants)!

Making this ice cream is SO easy.  It requires three ingredients - just three!!  You do need an ice cream maker.  We have the Kitchenaid ice cream bowl attachment. Then all you do is heat the milk/cream, add a few ingredients, chill, and run it through the mixer.

You can find ice cream recipes that are more involved.  One that I do every August is Fresh Peach Ice Cream (with Marcona almonds or fresh mint and cardamom).  It is AMAZING.  But after having made this the other day - along with another SUPER easy recipe for "Crunchy Coffee Ice Cream" (to which I added "Brickle" bits by Heath and crushed oreos), I'm basically convinced that they all are.  Ice cream shops, consider yourself the most recent addition to my "I can't eat out anymore because it's too disappointing" list (well, except you Izzy's... never you).

For This Recipe (makes 6 servings):

2 cups fresh blueberries

1 cup sugar (in retrospect, I would reduce to 1/2 cup or maybe 3/4 cup)

1 tbsp water

2 cups half-and-half

Simmer the blueberries, sugar, and water until sugar dissolves and berries are tender.  Stir in half-and-half.  Once chilled, run through ice cream maker.

THAT'S IT PEOPLE.  And you will NEVER have it this good in the stores (or even this healthy).

For a mind-blowing twist, take some sour cream (however much you want to taste) and stir it up a bit with brown sugar (I used dark brown sugar).  Add it towards the end of ice cream processing so that it blends but doesn't get fully mixed.  You now have a creation called "Sour Cream Blueberry Brown Sugar Ice Cream."  That's my plan for next time around - it will taste AMAZING based on what I was able to do softening some of my blueberry ice cream and stirring it up with a little sour cream/brown sugar mixture.


I plan to spend the rest of the summer trying new ice cream recipes.  I'll definitely post my tastiest finds - stay tuned!

Homemade Fresh Peach Ice Cream with Ginger-Molasses Cookies

Some of the best desserts do require a great deal of effort, and this one is well worth making once a year in August when peaches are at their best.

Fresh homemade peach ice cream with mint sprig from our garden.

You'll need an ice cream maker; we have the ice cream attachment for our Kitchenaid blender. 

Kitchenaid Blender with Ice Cream Maker Attachment

You'll need fresh, ripe peaches.  If you want the ice cream to work as a stand-alone dessert (without the cookies) you have GOT to use the BEST, juiciest, most flavorful perfectly ripe peaches you can get your hands on.  Ho-hum standard but fully ripe peaches that just don't *quite* pack that flavor punch won't be good enough.  This ice cream relies on summer's bounty for its flavor... and that goodness has to be timed perfectly in order to be fully harnessed.

This year's peaches weren't as good as last year's... I jumped the gun and should have waited for August.

I adapted this ice cream recipe from "Ice Cream:  Recipe of the Week" by Sally Sampson.

You'll need:

4 1/2 cups pitted, skinned, and dice peaches (about 7 peaches)
2 cups heavy cream (yup, ice cream is baaaaaad)
1 cup cream
4 egg yolks (large) at room temp
1 cup white sugar
Large pinch kosher salt
 2 tsp fresh lemon juice
 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup Marcona almonds (salted), whizzed in food processor OR
Chopped fresh mint leaves and 3 tbsp cardamom - if going this route, add a full tsp of kosher salt

Place the peaches in bowl, cover and keep at room temp for a few hours.

Mash with a potato masher on occasion, or pulse just a bit in a food processor.

 You'll get a consistency sort of like this.  A few chunks to stumble upon in the ice cream, but mostly just puree.  Cover and refrigerate.

 Now, simmer the heavy cream and cream in a pan until heated through but not steaming.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks, sugar, salt together.  If you're adding cardamom and mint, add it now.

Slowly add the warmed cream to the egg mixture, continuing to whisk.  Don't go too fast or you'll risk cooking the eggs with the warm cream.

Return the mixture to the saucepan and heat until just steaming but not boiling (note:  this probably doesn't kill all the bacteria; pregnant women, babies, and the elderly should avoid homemade ice cream).  Once done, let the mixture reach room temp (or to hurry things along, put it in the refrigerator).  Once cool enough, add the peaches, lemon juice, and vanilla and stir.  Cover and refrigerate 2-3 hours or until mixture is fully chilled.

Process the ice cream in your ice cream maker, per the manufacturer's directions.  If you are adding the almonds, add them just as the ice cream is coming together.

The ice cream will thicken as you churn.  I chose to churn slowly, this yields a more dense ice cream (and saves room in the ice cream maker if you're short on space).

Transfer ice cream to air tight container and place in freezer until the ice cream reaches your desired texture.  Personally I prefer it about 3 hours into freezing, when it's still somewhat soft.  Home made ice cream has a very short shelf life - it's best within 12-24 hours of making, and after a few days it loses its charm - TRAGIC, this is a recipe to share with neighbors while the gettin' is good!  

Now, if you're feeling ambitious - or if you're disappointed in your peaches - my husband agrees with me that this may be the best flavor combo we've ever found.  I have to credit our friends Aaron and Rachel for originally introducing us to peach ice cream with ginger snaps, and credit Kelly for finding the best-ever recipe for Big Soft Ginger Cookies.

You don't need to make ice cream sandwiches, which involves letting the ice cream soften so you can shape it appropriately between the cookies.  It's lovely as a small dish of ice cream with a cookie on the side.  

Homemade Fresh Peach Ice Cream with Ginger-Molasses Cookies.

This is my second year making this recipe in August and I hope to make it an annual tradition.  The ginger and molasses in the cookies are perfect compliments to sweet, fresh peaches-and-cream.  Ice cream and peaches are perfect for honoring the month of August, and the spices in the cookies hint of the cozy excitement just around the seasonal corner.

Enjoy!!