Roasted Cherry Lavender Ice Cream

I haven’t forgotten about you!  It seems like a month has gone by since my last post. Even my dad was like, “Is something wrong with your blog? Every time I check it’s the same smoothie.” Ha. Yikes.  The majorly good news is I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth, I’ve just had a LOT of freelance photography work lately. Hooray!

The other good news is, today I’m sharing a recipe for roasted cherry lavender ice cream!

This post is sponsored by Frontier Co-op.

It’s officially summer and we’re finally drying up from 1.5 months of insane amounts of rain for Colorado.

The fruits + veggies are starting to pile up at the farmers’ market and I’m taking full advantage. Cherries made an early appearance at the Boulder Farmers’ Market this year, and I pounced when I saw them. I knew they would be the perfect seasonal, local ingredient to feature as part of the Spice Up Summer campaign with Frontier Co-op. I’ve been working with Frontier on coming up with different ways to use dried herbs + spices with summer produce. You may have seen some of my ideas on Instagram. I also recently took over their Instagram account to highlight my early summer findings at the market. If you missed it, be sure and check it out starting with this photo. I had such a fun day exploring the market and talking to the farmers.

It took me awhile to think about how I would use cherries and what flavor profile I wanted to achieve. I went back and forth on sweet and savory ideas but had ice cream on the brain and just couldn’t shake it. Cherry ice cream sounded divine.

As much as I love eating raw cherries, I don’t really enjoy large pieces of fruit in my ice cream. So raw cherries weren't happening in this recipe. I also knew I didn’t want to make a solid cherry ice cream. I was imagining ribbons of roasted cherry puree, sliding between the layers of creamy, vanilla bean ice cream. And then I remembered this blackberry lavender ice cream I had a few years ago and obsessed over.

My mind was made up! I would pair the cherries with lavender and a base of vanilla bean ice cream.

I could almost taste how well the lavender was going to pair with the roasted cherry and vanilla flavors. It’s much smoother than you might imagine, and I promise it doesn’t taste like you’re eating soap or a lavender-scented candle.

Plus, lavender is known for its calming affects, so eating this ice cream will totally put you in a zen state of mind.

You can typically find dried lavender buds in the bulk spice section of your grocery store. If you can’t find them in store, they’re available online as well. Just make sure you’re buying food-grade quality. And if you have to buy in a large quantity, there are many other uses for dried lavender, so they definitely won’t go to waste!

Making this ice cream will involve some time, but the end result is absolutely worth it. It melts in your mouth with just the right amount of cherry sweetness and lavender essence.

What are you waiting for?

Time to dig in.

Print Recipe!

Roasted Cherry Lavender Ice Cream 

gluten-free // yields appx. 4 servings

• 2 cups pitted + halved sweet cherries
• 2 tablespoon pure cane sugar
• 2 cups whole milk, divided
• 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon arrowroot starch
• 3 1/2 tablespoons full-fat cream cheese, softened
• 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 1/4 cups heavy cream
• 2/3 cup pure cane sugar
• 1/4 cup dried lavender buds
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1-2 vanilla beans, split + scraped, pods reserved (about 1/4 teaspoon beans)

*Pre-freeze your ice cream maker bowl according to manufacturer's instructions. I keep mine stored in the freezer so it's always ready.

Preheat your oven to 450° F. 

Place pitted cherries in a baking dish and toss with sugar. Roast for 15-20 minutes until cherries have softened and are starting to caramelize. Stir halfway through.

While roasting, prepare an ice bath in a large mixing bowl. Remove cherries from the oven and let cool for 15-20 minutes. After cooling, place in your blender (optional) and pulse to desired consistency for stirring into your ice cream. Pour into a quart-sized freezer bag, squeeze the air out, and seal. Place in the ice bath to fully chill.

While cherries are roasting, whisk 2-3 tablespoons of milk (from the 2 cups) in a small bowl with the starch until well combined. In a med/large mixing bowl, hip the cream cheese and salt together until smooth. Set both aside.

In a large pot, add the remaining milk, cream, sugar, lavender, honey, scraped beans, and vanilla bean pods. Place over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Boil for 4 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and whisk in the starch mixture. Place back on medium-high heat and stir with a heat-safe spatula until just starting to thicken, 1-2 minutes. Remove from the heat. Remove vanilla bean pod(s).

In about 4 increments, whisk the milk mixture into the cream cheese bowl until smooth. Pour through a fine mesh strainer over another large bowl to strain the lavender buds. Pour into a gallon-sized freezer back, squeeze the air out, and seal. Place in the ice bath until fully chilled. About 30-60 minutes.  

Pour the milk mixture into your ice cream maker and let spin until thick like soft serve ice cream. Refer to manual for timing details. Once finished, pour in the cherry mixture and fold in a few times. Scoop into a freezer-safe, airtight storage container and pack down. Press parchment paper directly on top of the ice cream and seal with the lid. Let freeze for 4+ hours before serving.

Notes:

• If you do not have an ice cream maker, check out this post for ideas on how to freeze your ice cream.

Lavender infusion adapted from: Jessica’s White Chocolate Lavender Ice Cream
Ice cream adapted from: Jenis Splendid  Ice Creams At Home, Ugandan Vanilla Bean Ice Cream pg. 148-149 

I’m curious to hear what interesting herbs + spices have you been adding to your summer produce lately! Be sure to share your creations with the hashtag #SpiceUpSummer and tag @edibleASH and @frontiercoop !

Also! Be on the lookout for TWO recipes in one week over here and another use for your summer cherries. Ohhh yaaah.

Ashley

This post is sponsored by Frontier Co-op. All opinions are my own. If I didn't love it, you wouldn't hear about it. Thanks for supporting the brands that support Edible Perspective!

strawberry lavender doughnuts with cream cheese frosting

These doughnuts were actually made on Sunday and meant to be blogged about on Monday.  I took photos and taste tested but wasn’t 100% happy with them.  The lavender flavor was too strong and the strawberry didn’t come through enough.  The frosting was also slightly runny because I tried to whip the strawberries into it.  Not recommended.

I’ve had a small handful of dried lavender on my windowsill for the past few weeks.  I picked it up at the farmers market for a whopping $1.  Actually, that is probably overpriced considering lavender grows like weeds here and is in almost every single yard you walk past.

Point of this story?  Well, there barely is one.  Basically, the first go around of this recipe was a drippy frosting, fragrant fail.  Also, I took a handful of lovely dried lavender photos on Sunday and wiped my card clean before taking today’s photos.  I needed those photos for this post.  Photographing already ground lavender looked like a purple-tinted pile of dirt.  It just wasn’t doing it for me.

But I couldn’t show you these doughnuts without a photograph of lavender. So what did I do?  Borroweda few small stems from the neighbors while walking the dogs.

The bushes are literally 5 feet in diameter.  I don’t think anyone is going to notice.

And, on the bonus side these are much prettier photos than the dried lavender shots!

Now that my pointless story is over how about some doughnuts? 

How about a little cream cheese frosting sweetened with honey and powdered sucanat?

How about adding strawberries on top of the frosting instead of mixing them into it?

I’m thinking yes, and I hope you are too.

Print this!

Strawberry Lavender Doughnuts with Cream Cheese Frosting 

gluten-free // yields 8 doughnuts

• 1/2 cup gluten free oat flour
• 1/2 cup sweet rice flour
• 6 tablespoons pure cane sugar or sucanat
• 7 tablespoons strawberry puree [see below]
• 6 tablespoons unsweetened almond milk
• 2 eggs
• 3 tablespoons almond meal
• 2 tablespoons sunflower oil
• 2.5 teaspoons grounddried lavender buds
• 1.5 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon baking powder*
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 8-10 strawberries for topping

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Grease your doughnut pan with melted butter, melted coconut oil, or cooking spray. 
2. In a large bowl mix together all of your dry ingredients.
3. In a medium bowl whisk together all of your wet ingredients until smooth.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir with a large wooden spoon until just combined.  Avoid over-stirring.
5. Carefully spoon the mixture into the doughnut pan molds about 1/8” from the top.
6. Bake for 18 – 24min until golden brown and springy to the touch.  If you toothpick test you want it to be moist, not gooey or dry.
7. Let the doughnuts cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then slide a small spatula around the edges to loosen.
8. Turn the doughnuts out onto a cooling rack, let completely cool, and then frost the doughnuts.
9. Cut the stem off of the 8-10 strawberries and place them on a cutting board flat side down.  Slice thinly [about 8 slices] and then slice once down the center in the opposite direction to halve the slices.
10. Place the halves in an overlapping pattern on top of the frosting.  Best if served immediately but can be stored—covered—in the fridge for 1 day.

notes: Using a Wilton doughnut pan this recipe yields 8 doughnuts.  *For altitude around 5,000 feet set your oven to 370 degrees and decrease the baking powder to 3/4 tsp.  Make sure your dried lavender buds are ground.  You can finely chop them or use a food processor or coffee grinder [just beware the scent may linger].

Strawberry Puree[yields ~ 1/2 cup]

• 1.5 cups strawberries
• 1 Tbsp honey
• 1tsp tapioca starch

1. Place the cleaned + stemmed strawberries into a pot over medium heat with the honey and tapioca starch.
2. Stir until the mixture comes to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer [uncovered] for 10 minutes or until thickened and strawberries are breaking apart.
3. Empty mixture into a blender, puree, then let cool.

Cream Cheese Frosting [yields 1 cup]

• 3/4 cup cream cheese
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 cup powdered sucanat or powdered sugar
• 2 Tbsp honey

1. Beat the cream cheese and butter together until fluffy and smooth.
2. Beat in the honey and powdered sucanat until just smooth.
3. Refrigerate for 15-20min while the doughnuts are baking and cooling.
4. If you want a sweeter or stiffer frosting add more powdered sucanat.

A great farewell to strawberry season. 

Ashley