Cherry Gelcia

Here it is the end of August, and it's been a while since my last post. But I think you'll like these new edible cocktails.  These were made for a Vermont party back in July during peak cherry season. 

When I think of Vermont I think of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream.  And what's more summery than ice cream. So here is my interpretation of an Vermont ice cream favorite in edible cocktail form.  The Cherry Gelcia.

Photo by Anthony Eng

These pieces were made with fresh cherries from Smolak Farms. Unfortunately we couldn't pick them due to the bad spring weather.  Farms make most of their money from selling them to restaurants and to the canning industry.  Back in the 1900's hundreds of varieties of cherries were grown in New York, but according to Russ Parsons of "How to Pick A Peach", very few sweet cherries made the selection process and what'll you find at the supermarket is the ubiquitous Bing cherry.

Starting with Bing cherries, I juiced them and folded in gelatin, sweetened condensed milk, sugar, vanilla, cherries, and chocolate chips. To cocktailize them, I added Luxardo cherry liqueur a beautiful clear spirit made from mashed cherries from Italy. I also added vanilla rum, and a dash of creme de cacao.

I used a cylinder mold to emulate the pint containers that ice cream come in, and topped with some chopped cherry, mini chocolate chips, and crumbled ice cream cone. 

Then working with my favorite baker, Emily Bao, we created these tiny ice cream cones and an ice cream scoop mold. 

More things to come! Enjoy the finals days of summer!