In a pot combine the buttermilk, cream cheese and sugar. Cook over medium heat so the cream cheese will begin to melt into mixture. Stir so the sugar will dissolve throughout as well.

In another bowl have your egg yolks ready. Add a few spoonfuls of the warm milk mixture to the egg yolk bowl and stir. Continue until you can feel that the bowl (and mixture inside) has begun to warm. You want to temper (warm up) the yolks before adding them to the pot so they don't cook too quickly, causing cooked egg pieces to form throughout your ice cream batter. If this does happen though, don't fret. We'll fix it. Just keep reading.

Once warmed, add the yolk mixture along with the vanilla beans (scraped from inside the pod) to the pot. Cook over low/medium heat until the mixture has thickened and can easily coat the back of a spoon. In the photo above my batter is not quite thick enough yet, but it's starting to get there.

Pour the mixture through a fine mesh strainer (removing any cooked egg bits or stubborn pieces of cream cheese) into a gallon size ziplock bag over ice. Allow the mixture to cool until it is chilled. I usually put my bowl in the refrigerator to move along the process. You can also leave this mixture in the refrigerator overnight if you aren't ready to make your ice cream yet.

Strain once more into your ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer's instructions to make ice cream. Every ice cream maker is a little different, so just follow the steps for yours. During the last few minutes of mixing, when the ice cream is a soft serve consistency, add in the cherries and pretzels. Freeze if you want a firmer consistency from what your ice cream maker can produce.