Cherry Vanilla

What is it?

Black cherries rather than the red ones most cherry products use. They're darker, sweeter and lower in acid, which changes the balance: less of a sharp edge cutting the dairy, and more depth of fruit. Vanilla is the right partner precisely because it does so little. Anything with more going on would bury the fruit, and the point of the pairing is that the cherry stays the loudest thing in the tub. Cherry also holds up in the cold better than most fruit, where a peach or an apricot fades into generic sweetness once frozen. Whole cherries are the harder way to do it. They carry a lot of water, so they have to be handled to keep them from setting into hard lumps, which is why a lot of cherry ice cream uses a ribbon instead.