Chocolate Cherry Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream

From: Stock.Xchng

I love cherry season. There is just something about these little dark red round fruited that just make summer, well...summer. This is an ice cream recipe that I made up over a  year ago and it is now our summer favorite that we will make every year. Nothing goes better with cherries then chocolate and nothing goes better with chocolate then cherries. They are a perfect flavor combo match.

In this recipe I tried something new. I had used chia seeds to see how they would work in an ice cream and they did alright. I made just plain chocolate and you couldn't see the tiny black specks, but I wasn't sure I liked the texture that they created in the ice cream. So I did some research and found that Spunky Coconut has made ice cream using gelatin. So I tried it and it turned out great. The texture is perfect and it makes dairy free ice cream not stiff or hard. My husband wants me to making ice cream with gelatin from here on out, and why not is sure beats xanthan gum. If you are going to use gelatin my advice is to make sure you get every drop into your ice cream mixture and to not let it harden while you are getting everything together.

Chocolate Cherry Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream

1 quart dairy free milk (I used hemp, but soy and rice works too.)

1 cup cherries pitted and chopped

3 Tbs cocoa powder 

1 cup dark chocolate chunks

3/4 cup of honey or brown rice syrup

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 package of gelatin dissolved in 1/4 cup of warm water

dash of salt

Mix milk, cocoa powder, honey, vanilla, gelatin, and salt in a blender. Once they all mixed add them to the ice cream maker and follow the instructions for your machine. Once ice cream is done and is ready to be chilled or served, stir in the chocolate chunks and the cherries into the ice cream.  Stir well to make sure that they don't sink to the bottom. Makes 2 quarts.