Cherry Pit/ Noyaux Ice Cream. & More Notes on Homemade Ice Cream

We appear to be having a cherry pit-fest over here at eggbeater. Welcome, take a seat, but don't eat candied stones from strangers. Not everyone has your best interest at heart.

See PART ONE here and PART TWO there.

One of the many commenters on this controversial post asked why did I not give a recipe for Cherry Pit Ice Cream after I waxed, or cackled-- depending on how you look at it, poetic on the elusive subject. And so, not one to say a unilateral no to requests, here is the recipe.

Find my notes on ice cream from scratch here. In that post there are 3 links to other people who had the time to type out how to make creme anglaise-- the liquid base for many ice cream recipes. If you need a lot of hints, check out what David Lebovitz has to say in his book The Perfect Scoop, or in his Ice Cream Tips category on his blog.

*

    CHERRY PIT / NOYAUX ICE CREAM

    Whole Milk  3 Cups
    Heavy Cream* 1 Cup
    Sugar   3/4 Cup
    Large Egg Yolks   6-7
    Smashed Cherry Pits   1 - 1 1/2 Cups

    *Not ultra pasteurized or listing stabilizers on the carton.

    Heat milk, cream, pits, and half the sugar, in that order, in heavy bottomed stainless steel saucepan over low to medium heat. When hot to the touch, shut off heat, whisk and let steep 1-2 hours, tasting every 30 minutes.

    When hot dairy tastes as strong as you'd like it (remembering that it will taste stronger in flavor and sweetness when it's hot), bring liquid to boil and pass through a fine meshed sieve, pressing on the solids to press out as much of the liquid as you can.

    Make creme anglaise with scented liquid, being sure to chill in ice bath until chilled through and through. It is best eaten the day it is churned but will keep 5 days in a non-reactive container (I use glass) with a tight fitting lid in the coldest part of your fridge.

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Creme anglaise recipes vary considerably because, 1. recipes are guides, and 2. recipes are about proportions. If you know what role an ingredient plays and who each ingredient relies on to make it be the best it can be, you can switch up most anything to suit your particular whim on a given day.

The proportion I start with for home ice cream makers is:
6-8 egg yolks
for every
1Q liquid dairy
and
1/2 - 2/3 Cups sugar

My experience with home machines is that they prefer to have slightly less butterfat involved. In a commercial machine it's easy to make ice cream that cardiologists would call the police on you for, on the other hand. This is because of the amount of time an ice cream spends in the machine, physically getting churned. It's about how much chill a machine might be holding onto or being generated.

If you want the best homemade ice cream mouthfeel, eat churned ice cream as soon as it's ready. If you must put ice cream away for a few weeks or long days, about 20 minutes before you want to eat it, put container in your fridge. This will help "temper" the ice cream = get it to soften slowly, carefully and evenly. If your ice cream ingredients were high in sugar or alcohol, though, you might never get a hard set because these ingredients lower the freezing temperature of water and create smoother, more elastic, softer ice creams.

When making ice creams whose flavors depend on infusions it is of utmost importance that you taste as you go. All herbs, whether they be green or dried, come in varying strengths that only god can determine. Depending on the time of year, weather, and soil; various highly scented flowers, leaves, woods, herbs, spices and other infusables will make stronger or weaker impressions on your ice cream base.

And

butterfat is the magic carpet ride for flavor infusions in ice cream

so

if you are looking for a really minty ice cream made with nonfat milk, you are going to have to work really hard at getting that mint scent and flavor to stick to the inside of your mouth once the ice cream melts.

About 10% of flavor and perfume get lost when ice cream is frozen. Although ice cream melts in your mouth, your mouth gets really cold and has a harder and harder time distinguishing actual flavor the more bites, licks, nibbles and slurps you take.

Also, if you infuse ingredients that are high in fat, like nuts and coconut, they will leach out extra fat into the creme anglaise and you might want to make adjustments for that. Not to mention that with something like dessicated coconut you will lose a portion of your liquid to it re-constituting the dried flakes, so you'll need to be aware of that too.

You can also make ice cream without eggs but not all "alternative dairys" want to be cooked until 160-180F. so be sure to check into it before making an expensive mess in your kitchen.

I hope some of these hints help. I wish you much ice cream making this summer! If you feel like thanking me you may do so by pitching in to buy me a machine I have coveted some time now...

Comments

[Megan]

Most importantly, how does one pronounce NOYAUX? Noy-o? Never took high school French.

Megan, Yes, of course. Here's how I pronounce this French word: NWHY-o. ~ Shuna

[David]

Let's say I eat a bunch of cherries and want to hold the pits. I guess I gotta wash 'em first whether I'm holding them or not. Then the freezer? Or does that wreck 'em? How long do you figure I've got before it's time to make ice cream?

Alo David,

I figure you probably don't want to hold pits in freezer longer than 2 months. Although I have kept the actual interior kernels/ noyaux frozen for a long time, the scent does wane after a long spell. Wash them? I don't see why or why not, but of course it's up to you. ~ Shuna

[fanny]

Shuna, I never thought of using cherry pits. It sounds damn fantastic though.

Plus I have a couple of kilos of cherries waiting to be eaten. I'll make sure to save the pits.

Thankx you xxxxxx

[Jessica]

Oh man, this sounds divine. Shuna, I haven't been this excited to make a new flavor of ice cream since I made pistachio gelato from Sicilian pistachio crema. Thank you!

[Scott]

I'm about to make this, but I have a question about the pits. Do I put in the whole crushed pit (broken outer hull and kernel), or just pick out the interior kernels? (If the latter, 1.5 cups is a lot, it is very fiddly!)

Scott,

I wrote this amount to compensate for using the whole stone, inside and outside, because to pick each kernel out is indeed too much to ask. I am not Martha Stewart. I have picked each noyaux out but it is indeed a job for someone with great eyesight and an over abundance of OCD.

When you use that hammer, use force-- you really want the interior kernel to be smashed so it releases flavour. P.S. please check back in to tell everyone how it went for you, yes? Thanks! ~ Shuna

[Scott]

Thanks for your reply. I had not seen it by the time I had to move ahead, so I did pick out the noyaux. In seeing what you describe, I likely did not bash (or chop) them enough. Still, the flavor was quite evident after a 2-hour steep.

The ice cream was successful - it's gone - and the flavor was more than subtle, but not overpoweringly strong. I did find that the aftertaste was slightly unpleasant and lasted quite a while. Other people also noticed it, but did not find it to be unpleasant.

Thanks for an interesting recipe.

Scott! Thanks so much for taking the time to write back with your results. It is interesting what you say about the aftertaste because I mostly pair this flavor/component with other flavor/components so I know it has a strong aftertaste but I rarely only have that as my only aftertaste. I always say you have to absolutely love the taste of almond extract... So lad you made it. You're welcome. ~ Shuna

[rosasharne]

this is amazing. it is so so good. especially when i added in the cherries. This is the most sophisticated ice cream ever to leave my freezer. thank you.
my father is extremely impressed that i know how to infuse.

Rosaharne,
This comment made me so warm and happy. Thank you for taking the time to write it and tell me. ~ Shuna

[Jennifer]

My boyfriend and I picked about two gallons of ripe wild black cherries this summer (as well as a lot of other wild fruit). They were bitter, for the most part (it varied from tree to tree), and too small to pit, so we decided to make wine from them on the grounds that the cherries could be hand crushed instead of pitted.

Because it would help break down some of the cell structure (and because we needed to free up a primary fermentation pail), these cherries have been in the freezer for a couple of months or more now. We just took them out two days ago and put together the wine recipe. (By the way, with enough sugar, they taste incredible. I may make jam or syrup next year instead.)

Anyway, I happened across your website today after adding in my wine yeast. In a week or two, I'm going to have a pile of cherry stones. I was wondering if it would be possible to use the stones from these wine cherries as you have with your cherry stones or if the fermentation process of the fruit might have cause some harm to come to them?

For the sake of the wine, which is the main concern, I am not going to strain out the fruit and stones until I am ready to move the wine into secondary fermentation.

[Bbq Dude]

Just found this via tartelette.

Your cherry pit ice cream is pure genious! Can't wait to make it!

[Mat]

Have you considered the toxicity of the pits? There is quite some info on the net about that and I am kind of worried (the ice cream is already made and sitting in the freezer)...

hello Mat, please click on the links in this sentence, "See PART ONE here and PART TWO there" and you'll see there's QUITE a discussion on this very subject: it's all been covered already. Enjoy your ice cream! ~ Shuna