Roast-Plum Ice-Cream

When I came into that glut of Queen Garnet plums recently, I did a quick poll on my Insta Stories to get some suggestions on what to make with them. The most popular response, by a country mile, was plum ice-cream. I love ice-cream, both eating and making, and I couldn't wait to get into the kitchen and try my hand at making plum ice-cream! (Does anyone remember my "Ice-Cream Sunday" project?)

One tricky thing about home-made fruit ice-creams, though, is that they can set very hard and be difficult to scoop, due to the water content in the fruit. The addition of sugar and alcohol does help them set less firmly, which is why you'll often see fruit-based ice-cream or sorbet recipes including a splash of kirsch or other booze, and why it's usually not recommended to significantly reduce the amount of sugar stipulated in the recipe.

However, last year I learned a great technique for deeply flavoured yet still scoopable roasted cherry ice-cream, from the wonderful Stella Parks AKA Bravetart. (You can read about the cherry ice-cream in more detail in my gushing post about Bravetart - she's pretty damn awesome). I thought the technique might work well with other stonefruit, like plums, so I gave it a go! Spoiler alert: I was right.

So, here's how I did it. I started by halving the plums (leaving in the pits), and roasting them with sugar until softened and juicy. This intensifies the plum flavour, and cooks off a lot of the water. Leaving the pits while roasting in also adds extra plum flavour.

Queen Garnet plums, ready for roasting

That colour is incredible.

Roast plums

Once the roasted plums were cool enough to handle, I fished out all of the pits, added them to a saucepan with some cream, brought it to a simmer, and then turned off the heat and let the cream infuse. This gives the cream a mild almond flavour, and a hint of colour from the plum flesh clinging to the pits. (Although I suppose that hint of colour is moot, seeing as the pale cream is be added to the blood-red plums later!)

Cream for steeping

And to pre-empt any questions I might get, and because I found this topic interesting, inside the pits of stonefruit are tiny almond-shaped kernels, also known as noyaux, which contain a substance called amygdalin, which if ingested raw can turn into cyanide, and in large quantities can be toxic. However, in this recipe, the noyaux (and the amygdalin) are locked away inside the plum pits, and if any trace amounts were to slip out, it would be neutralised through the cooking process (roasting and simmering).

I don't mean to alarm - noyaux are a proper food product, used commercially, and are edible if processed correctly. For example, apricot kernels are used to make bitter almond extract, and they can be distilled into liquor (crème de noyaux). I've seen lots of recipes for home cooks online using noyaux to flavour jams or marzipan, but the noyaux do need to be cooked properly to break down the amygdalin. I'll be honest though, even cracking open a stonefruit pit to get at the noyaux seems like way too much effort, so for now I have no interest in any home cooking with noyaux!

Let's get back to the plums! Once de-stoned, I transferred the soft plum halves to a jug and gave them a few blasts with a stand mixer to break them down, then added them back to the pan with all the juices. At this stage, if the mixture had been quite watery I would have cooked it on the stove for a bit to reduce the liquid, but as you can see from the photo above the liquid had already reduced in the oven, so I just went straight to the next step, which was to press the plums and juices through a sieve.

Plum pulp, plum concentrate in the background

Pressing the plums through a sieve gives you a concentrated plum liquid. I would suggest being quite firm about this, you want to get as much concentrate as you can out of the plums! Here's what the concentrate looks like.

Plum concentrate

You don't need the plum pulp left in the sieve for the ice-cream, but don't throw it out! You can keep it in a clean jar in the fridge and eat it as you would jam - although it's not gummy and sweet and sticky like a jam; it's more like, well, a lightly-sweetened cooked plum purée, with the focus on the plums and not the sugar. It's really beautiful and I've been enjoying it on toast and crumpets!

Plum pulp on crumpets

Back to the ice-cream... I strained the plum pits out of the cream, and then whisked the cream and the plum concentrate together, with a little salt and lemon juice. It turned the most beautiful blushing pink colour. (Of course, the colour would depend on what types of plum you use - the Queen Garnet plums I used were super intense red). You'll also note that this ice-cream mixture is just plums, sugar, cream, salt and lemon juice  - no eggs or other ingredients that would dull the flavour or colour of the plums in the finished product.

Ice-Cream Base

I then chilled the mixture thoroughly - in an ice bath, and then the fridge overnight - and then churned it. So creamy! So pink!

Churned roast plum ice-cream

Once churned I transferred the mixture to a container and let it freeze properly. And that was it!

Roast Plum Ice-Cream

The technique worked so well with the plums! I found that this ice-cream does need a good five to ten minutes out of the freezer to soften before scooping, but once that's done, the ice-cream is creamy and light and has a wonderfully intense plum flavour. Enjoy!

Roast-Plum Ice-Cream

Roast Plum Ice-Cream
A recipe by Sarah Cooks

Ingredients
750 grams ripe plums, preferably Queen Garnet
75 grams sugar
395 grams thickened cream
Generous pinch of salt
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Method
Preheat the oven to 200C.
Wash the plums and cut into quarters (don't remove the pits).
Place the plums, pits, and sugar into a ovenproof dish (one that can go in the oven and on the stove) and stir to combine. Roast for 45 minutes or until softened and juicy. Set aside until cool enough to handle.
Remove the pits and place in a small saucepan. Add the cream to the pits in the saucepan. Bring to a simmer, then remove from the heat, cover and set aside.
Place the plum chunks in the bowl of a food processor or in a tall narrow container (you can leave any juices or puree in the dish). Break up the plum chunks using the food processor or a stand-mixer. You don't need to puree them, you just want to break up the larger pieces. Return the chopped-up plums to the dish with the juices and give it a stir. If the mixture is quite liquid and watery, heat it on the stove for a few minutes to allow any excess water to evaporate.
Pass the plums and any juices through a sieve into a mixing bowl, pressing with a flexible spatula to extract as much liquid as possible. You don't need the pulp for the ice-cream; transfer to a clean jar and add a pinch of salt, and you can eat it like a jam.
Strain the cream into the plum liquid, and discard the pits. Add the salt and lemon juice and whisk gently to combine.
Place some ice-cubes and water in a large mixing bowl or one compartment of the sink, and sit the bowl with the ice-cream base inside. Allow to cool for about half an hour, stirring occasionally.
Cover the bowl with clingfilm and refrigerate until cold, at least 4 hours or overnight.
Churn the mix in an ice-cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions, until thickened, light and creamy.
Scrape the mixture into a one-litre container. Cover and freeze until firm, approximately 4 hours. Allow to soften at room temperature for 10 minutes before scooping if it is very firm.
Makes approx. 1 litre

Have you made this recipe? Leave a comment below! Tag me on Instagram @sarahcooksblog and hashtag #sarahcooksblog

Sarah received complimentary Queen Garnet plums from Nutrafruit but was not obligated to post or compensated in any way. All opinions are my own.

Bravetart book and Pretzel earrings

Stella's focus is American desserts - think layer cakes, buttercreams, marshmallows, cookies, ice-cream, ice-cream sandwiches, even Twinkies and sprinkles! She takes a really rigorous, scientific approach to her recipes. Often when I read recipes, my first thought is "how can I adapt this to suit my tastes and my kitchen?", but with Stella's recipes, I don't bother thinking of adapting or changing them - every ingredient and step in the method is there for a reason.

Like my previous obsession with Fuchsia Dunlop, and Queen Nigella Lawson before her, following Stella's recipes is teaching me how to cook, teaching me new techniques, and increasing my understanding of how food and recipes work. It's been so much fun making so many of her recipes! I have her book, I follow her on Twitter and Insta (her "behind-the-scenes" Insta stories are really inspiring, and she often replies to you if you tag her in something!), and I absolutely LOVE her articles and recipes on Serious Eats.

The first recipe I made of hers was her Super-Thick and Fruity Food Processor Whipped Cream from Serious Eats, which basically kicked off this whole obsession. I made it as an accompaniment to my birthday cake in 2017, and I've since made it again, for my chocolate passionfruit layer cake.

Super-Thick and Fruity Raspberry Whipped Cream

It's such a simple recipe - freeze dried fruit, sugar, and cream, whizzed together in a food processor - but it yields such a great result of a super-stable, long lasting, lusciously thick, and intensely flavoured cream. I also loved that she explained why it works. In short, the freeze-dried fruit powder absorbs excess liquid in the cream, preventing it from weeping over time. Whipping it in a processor (rather than using a whisk) means it gets thick without incorporating lots of air, so it's less likely to collapse over time. GENIUS.

Super-Thick and Fruity Passionfruit Whipped Cream

After making the passionfruit cream in October, the obsession really kicked up a notch, and I ended up making six different Bravetart recipes over November and December! Literally any excuse would do - last day of work for the year? Better make a cake for my team. A free Sunday with no plans? Why not make a pie and add Bravetart's cherry ice-cream, and cherry pit whipped cream? Phew.

The next recipe I made after the passionfruit cream was chocolate chip cookies, which uses chopped chocolate rather than chips for a better flavour and texture, a hint of nutmeg to enhance the buttery flavour, and a cold egg to prevent excess spreading.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'll be perfectly honest - these cookies were good, but they weren't my favourite. I personally found them too sweet and they were more chewy than the slightly cakey-crisp texture I prefer. I'm glad I tried these, but in future I'll stick to my favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe (David Lebovitz' chocolate chip cookies). Having said that, I took them to share with my coworkers and they got rave reviews. In fact, my colleague Abey declared them the best chocolate chip cookies he'd ever eaten, and asked if he could take some home for his wife!

Ok, so if I was ambivalent about the chocolate chip cookies, I was absolutely enamoured with the next recipe. I made Stella's yeasted pumpkin bread dough, but rather than making it in a loaf or as dinner rolls, I turned them into cinnamon rolls (using a very lightly adapted version of the sugary pecan filling from her overnight cinnamon rolls).

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

Oh my goodness, they were INCREDIBLE. After they came out of the oven and I'd covered them in cream cheese icing, I tried one, and it was literally the best thing I'd ever baked. The dough was so soft and fluffy (which can be a hard thing for a home baker to achieve), with a great contrasting crunch from the pecans, and the spicy-sweet flavours were just perfect. I'll be posting the full, amalgamated, recipe soon, because the rolls were perfection, and I don't ever want to forget how I baked them!

So, I've already told you about my cherry slab pie, which I made to use up a wonderful bounty of farm-fresh cherries. In addition to the pie, I used the glut of cherries as an excuse to try out Stella's roasted cherry ice-cream. Fruit ice-creams are difficult to make at home, as the water in the fruit can make the ice-cream icy and difficult to scoop. However, Stella's cherry ice-cream is easily scoopable and full of pure cherry flavour. (And colour!)

Cherry Ice-Cream

The only ingredients are cherries, sugar, and cream, with a little salt and some lemon juice. The magic here is in the techniques. To make this ice-cream you're roasting cherries (with the pit in, for extra flavour) and sugar, then pitting them. You cook the cherry pulp on the stove to concentrate the flavour and remove excess water (making the resultant ice-cream less icy), then press the cooked cherries through a sieve to extract intense cherry concentrate. You steep the pits in some cream (again, for extra flavour). Then you combine the cherry concentrate and cream, and churn it in an ice-cream maker. The result is an intensely flavoured and creamy cherry ice-cream, made of those five simple ingredients. Didn't I tell you she's an absolute genius?

The leftover cherry pulp can be jarred and eaten like a jam. It's delicious and I've been having it on toast with cream cheese!

Cherry Jam

With the cherry pits, you obviously steep them once for the cream that goes into the ice-cream, but apparently "they still have plenty of flavour left to give", so I made a batch of her cherry pit whipped cream as well. You just steep the cherry pits in cold cream overnight, then strain and whip with a little sugar. This is a clever idea, which I imagine comes from Stella's background as a restaurant pastry chef, where you'd have to really keep any wastage to a minimum. It makes a subtly flavoured, pale pink and fluffy cream. Perfect with a cherry pie!

Cherry Pit Whipped Cream

This day was just cherry madness and I loved it!

Cherry Pie, Cherry Pit Whipped Cream, Cherry Ice-Cream

Ok, last recipe! (For now). Chocolate skillet cake with milk chocolate frosting! This is essentially a scaled-down version of her devil's food cake, which can be made and baked all in the one skillet. (And indeed, I actually decided to buy a cast iron skillet in October last year after seeing them all the time in Stella's recipes).

Chocolate Skillet Cake

This is a simple and delicious chocolate cake, all dark and fluffy and moist and soft. The milk chocolate frosting is super easy and really delicious too. It's a really nice low-key cake, great for a weekday dessert, afternoon tea or just to treat yo'self. Although I wouldn't turn down a slice of this cake for a celebration or a special occasion! (The gold stars were a Sarah touch because FABULOUS).

Cherry Slab Pie

Five short days ago, I received a very exciting parcel - some beautiful, enormous, perfect cherries, fresh from Wandin Valley Farms. I'm obviously a huge lover of cherries (see my Black Forest Cake, Black Forest Cupcakes, and  Cherry Pie), and you may remember my trip to CherryHill Orchards last year. Well, the cherry season has started again, and it looks like promotional activities are in full swing. This year, unfortunately I've been too busy to make it out to any of the farms (boooo) and I've had to decline a few invites, but the Victorian Cherry Association (i.e. Vikki Leng) kindly sent me a gift box of cherries. And when I say "gift box", I actually mean FOUR KILOS! Holy moly!

Gifted cherries