Wednesday, 19 June 2013

Cherries with Vanilla Ice-cream

Top your favorite vanilla ice cream with cherries flambéed in Maraschino liqueur and Kirsch brandy and sprinkled with raspberry juice for a blissfully wonderful dessert experience. The creamy white vanilla ice cream looks absolutely gorgeous with bloody red sauce dripping over it. Simple and fast, you can turn a common and ordinary dessert into an elegant looking piece served in a fancy restaurant. Pair this with a beautiful bottle of Sauternes for an immaculate evening.

The flambé method creates a dramatic cooking experience that is not recommended for the novice cook to attempt. In this recipe, the cherries are drenched in liqueur and brandy and flamed up via the flambé method by tilting the pan or using a mini-blowtorch designed for use in the kitchen. The alcohol is mostly burned off, leaving a subtly intoxicating flavor. It also adds depth to the dessert dish.

German for “cherry water,” kirsch is a clear brandy made by distilling the fermented juice of cherries and its pits. Both sweet and sour cherries are used to make kirsch but the final product is not sweet at all like most cherry liqueurs are. They have a sort of bitter taste and are thus popularly used to make kirsch chocolates. You can check out free video recipes at Gourmandia.ca.

To counter the subtly bitter taste of kirsch, Maraschino is also used to flambé the cherries in this recipe. A relatively dry liqueur made from Marasca cherries, Maraschino has a bitter almond flavor but is combined with pure cane syrup; thereafter it is aged and filtered.

Heat the cherries drenched in kirsch and maraschino in a saucepan just until bubble begin to form around the edges of the liquid. Do not bring the liquor to a boil as the alcohol will be burned off and will fail to ignite. Alcohol has a boiling point much lower than water, around 175 degrees F.

Ingredients

4 tablespoons cherries
4 scoops vanilla ice cream
14 tablespoons butter
9 tablespoons sugar
2 spoons Maraschino cherry liqueur
2 spoons Kirsch fruit brandy
3 spoons raspberry juice
1 spoon grilled almonds
mint leaves

1. Melt butter in a pan. Add sugar. When sugar dissolves, add the cherries and bring to a gentle simmer.

2. Add the Maraschino and Kirsch and heat for 30 seconds.

3. Standing away from the pan, ignite the cherries using a mini kitchen blowtorch or long match.

4. Sprinkle with raspberry juice when flames die down.

5. Pour the whole over a scoop vanilla ice cream.

6. Place the grilled almonds and a mint leaf on top.

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