Scooped: Roasted Apricot and Almond Ice Cream

[Photograph: Max Falkowitz]

Yes, I'm asking you to turn your oven on in the summer. For ice cream. And yes, it's worth it.

Because more than any other stonefruit, a less-than-absolutely-gorgeous apricot is well worth cooking. The intense, dry heat of the oven intensifies its flavor, bringing its sweet-tart jamminess into full view.

You can steer clear of the oven, but not for too long. There's a fine line between perfectly roasted into submission and burned, and the latter is irretrievable.

This ice cream has one other trick up its sleeve. In addition to folding chunks of toasted almonds into the churned ice cream, try steeping toasted almonds into the cream itself. The effect is a little subtle, but it adds a deep, lasting toasted richness to the ice cream and provides a nice backbone to all that fruit. You'll lose some of your cream in the process—the almonds soak up 1/4 to 1/2 cup—but there's still plenty to give the ice cream an intense buttery flavor and texture.

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Roasted Apricot and Almond Ice Cream »

About the author: Max Falkowitz is the editor of Serious Eats: New York. You can follow him on Twitter at @maxfalkowitz.