Today's Ice Cream: Very Cherry Chocolate Flake

I have high hopes for this one.

Cherries have been one of my favorite fruits since I was a child and chocolate, well, that's self-explanatory.

For the third time running there's no formal recipe.  I think I'm finally getting the hang of this, at least when it comes to fruit based ice cream.  Here's the list of ingredients and a quasi-recipe.

2 pounds of dark and juicy bing organic cherries. (Organic isn't a must but if you're going to the trouble of making ice cream you might as well use the best and healthiest ingredients.)
1.5 cups of heavy cream
1.5 cups of milk
4 egg yolks
75 grams of dark chocolate (I used a 70% cocoa bar from Madagascar)
1 cup of sugar (1/3 brown and 2/3 white)
1/2 tsp of vanilla
Optional: 2 tbsp of your alcohol of choice (it helps the ice cream from freezing really hard). I used one 1 tbsp of bourbon and 1 tbsp of vodka.

Pit and chop the cherries into chunks. Sprinkle and toss the cherries with 2-3 tbsp of sugar then roast at 350F for 15 minutes or so until soft and juice has been released but before they burn. Take 2/3 of the roasted cherries (including 2/3 of any juice in the pan) and puree in a blender. Place the remaining 1/3 in the fridge. Make the base, cool it, then mix well with the pureed cherries. Incorporating the cherry flavor into the base as opposed to pieces of cherry in a plain/vanilla base is what makes it "Very Cherry" for me.

Chill overnight.

The following morning, shave as much of the chocolate bar with a veggie peeler as you'd like (I used almost the entire bar). You should get lots of small chocolate flakes as in the photo above. Mix the vanilla and alcohol, if you're using it, into the ice cream batter and churn.  When done, in batches fold the remaining chopped up cherries and chocolate flakes into the ice cream. Freeze for at least 2 hours.

Enjoy!