Ben & Jerry's Plum Ice Cream

This Ben & Jerry’s plum ice cream uses the brand’s signature two-stage fruit technique to keep fresh plum flavor and texture intact. Plums are peeled, mashed, and macerated in sugar to draw out their juice. The juice gets blended into the sweet cream custard base for color and flavor; the pulpy fruit puree itself goes in toward the end of the churn so it stays in distinct ribbons rather than dissolving uniformly into the ice cream.

The result is something a single-stage ice cream can’t match: a creamy custard background marbled with concentrated plum, where each scoop hits with both a smooth Vermont-style mouthfeel and bursts of fresh-fruit intensity.

Plum variety is the choice that defines the flavor. Black or red plums produce a rich, deep magenta ice cream with strong tart-sweet character. Yellow plums make a more delicate, almost honeyed scoop. Italian prune plums give the deepest, most jam-like result. The recipe works with any of them.

Maceration is the trick that prevents iciness. Plums hold a lot of water, and water that goes into ice cream untreated freezes into ice crystals that ruin the texture. Drawing out the juice with sugar first gives you control: the juice becomes part of the smooth custard, while only the firmer fruit pulp goes in for ribboning, where its texture matters less than its flavor.

Use ripe plums. A firm green plum has acid but no sweetness, and the resulting ice cream tastes thin and harsh. Look for fruit that yields slightly to a press and smells fragrant at the stem end.

Pro Tips

• Peel the plums by scoring an X on the bottom and dunking in boiling water briefly. The skins slip off cleanly without losing flesh.
• Mash with a fork or potato masher rather than a blender. Blender plum puree is too smooth and disappears into the custard.
• Add the plum puree only when the ice cream has reached soft-serve consistency. Adding earlier blends it away; adding later doesn’t allow the ribbons to swirl in.
• Let the finished ice cream rest in the freezer for at least four hours before serving. Fresh-churned ice cream is too soft to scoop properly.

Variations

• Add a splash of port wine or Italian amaro to the macerating plums for a grown-up twist.
• Stir grated orange zest into the cream base for citrus brightness.
• Drizzle each scoop with a thin honey-and-balsamic syrup for a sophisticated dessert presentation.