Recipe: Rum Cherry Ice Cream (using dried cherries)

Rum Cherry Ice Cream
rec.food.recipes/Sherri Eastman/1995
Source: Lee Bailey's Long Weekends)
Makes about 1 3/4 pints

3/4 cup dried cherries
light rum
2 1/2 cups half-and-half
1/2 cup sugar
4 large egg yolks
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Place the cherries in a bowl and cover with rum. Allow to soak for several hours.

Heat half-and-half and sugar together until sugar is dissolved and bubbles begin to form around edge of the pot. Whisk yolks until creamy and then whisk in 1/2 cup of the heated half-and-half mixture. Pour the warmed yolks back into the half-and-half and continue to cook, stirring, until the custard mixture coats the back of a spoon. DO NOT OVERCOOK OR THE CUSTARD WILL CURDLE. Stir in vanilla, allow to cool completely, then chill.

Pour into a commercial ice-cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer's directions. Drain the cherries. When the mixture begins to thicken as it freezes, add the cherries and freeze until ice cream is the proper consistency.