Melon-Yogurt Semifreddo with fresh cherries

I am not a dessert lover, therefore I don’t usually make them. Yet, I love gelato and semifreddo, so when I am planning to prepare a dessert, I usually keep in mind either a gelato or a semifreddo recipe.

When it comes to gelato in Italy, there are many kinds and interpretations. However, the most clever idea I had ever seen is fruttini, which are real fruit stuffed with gelato (of the same fruit). Hence, you can find peaches with peach gelato filling, or lemons with lemon gelato filling. You can even finds nuts (and these are mind-blowing!), such as walnuts with walnut gelato stuffing, or chestnuts with chestnut gelato filling.

To remind myself of this amazing dessert, I had to see a stunning picture featured on the post “Second string strawberries save the day” that you can find on Roger Stowell’s wonderful blog Camerahols / Food, Photography and France.

Roger Stowell, a British renowned professional photographer, publishes his marvelous photographs from the Vendée region in France. This time he posted a gorgeous picture of Chanterais melon with strawberries.

What really impressed me was the detail of the melon pulp and so, my first thought was that of making a melon stuffed with a melon semifreddo. From the picture on Roger Stowell’s blog, you can see that he used strawberries. Unfortunately, strawberry season in Italy is over, so I replaced them with cherries.

In this semifreddo recipe I used whole-milk Greek-style yogurt instead of heavy cream to lighten up the dessert!

Melon-Yogurt Semifreddo with fresh cherries

Ingredients

• 1 small melon
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 500 grams of whole-milk Greek-style yogurt
• 3 eggs separated
• fresh cherries
• some mint leaves to garnish

Method

Half the melon crosswise. Scoop out seeds.Remove flesh from the melon and set aside. Keep melon rinds.

Pit cherries and cut in halves lenghtwise.

Using an immersion blender, purée melon flesh until smooth. Set aside.

Whisk egg yolks with brown sugar in a bowl. Set bowl with yolk mixture over a saucepan of simmering water (this method is called baño maría or bain-marie). Whisk constantly until mixture thickens. Set aside to cool down. Using an immersion blender, beat mixture until thick.

Beat egg whites in another large bowl until soft peaks form. Gradually add the egg yolk-sugar mixture, and beat until stiff. Fold in Greek yogurt and melon purée. Blend well.

Fill each melon rind with the melon yogurt semifreddo mixture. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze overnight.

Since I got some extra semifreddo mixture, I filled some silicon molds (of about 6 cups each) making up about 12 small cups of semifreddo.

Take melon rinds from the freezer and with the use of a teaspoon scoop out  the center from each rind.

Place cherries in the melon cavity.

For the cups, remove them from the silicon molds and place two cherry halves on top of each. Garnish with a mint leave.