Rhubarb, It Turns Out, Can Be a Sweetie

This rhubarb caramel ice cream strikes a balance between the two: chock-full of sweet bits, but with enough satiny frozen custard to savor between the chunks.

To keep the rhubarb from freezing into tooth-breaking fruity ice cubes, I stewed it with plenty of sugar, turning it into a syrupy compote. The high sugar content keeps the fruit soft. The technique works with any summer fruit, though it’s especially nice with rhubarb, or gooseberries for that matter, both of which need a lot of sugar to tame their squint-inducing acid content. But you can substitute strawberries, apricots, cherries, peaches or plums as the summer fruit season progresses, adjusting the sugar depending upon the sweetness of the fruit.

The compote should taste just a bit cloying on the stove; that’s how you will know you’ve added enough sugar. Honey works as a sweetener, too, and can add a deep, rich, earthy character — think apricot honey ice cream and swoon.

As if the rhubarb compote were not enough to flavor the ice cream, I also layered in sticky caramel. Here’s a rule about caramel: The darker you let the sugar cook, the more complex the resulting caramel. I like to let the sugar caramelize until it’s a rich, deep brown with a reddish cast, the color of an Irish setter or the red oak trim of my kitchen windows. What you don’t want is black, which equals burned, which equals bitter. Simmer it slowly and check the hue by dripping some onto a white plate.

With all that syrupy caramel and jammy fruit, I wanted an ice cream base with a contrasting tang, so I used sour cream in place of some of the heavy cream. Yogurt, buttermilk, crème fraîche, cream cheese or even quark would give you a similar brightness. Or for something on the sweeter, gentler side of the spectrum, go ahead and use all heavy cream. You can’t go wrong with the combination of rhubarb, caramel and ice cream.