Blueberry Nectarine Sorbet

No, it's not baby food- while it may not look as delicious as some other sorbets, I assure you this seasonal delight is delectable! I decided to use a different method this time because I wanted to maintain the fresh fruit flavor rather than the "oooh...pie" flavor of cooked fruit.

In order to achieve this, I macerated the fruits in sugar. This created a sort of thick syrup, so all I had to do was add a little water and voila! No stovetop needed for this puppy- the simple syrup basically creates itself! I topped the ice cream with a little heated up apricot preserves for a little extra sweetness.

Blueberry Nectarine Sorbet

7ea. nectarines

1 1/2c. blueberries

1c. sugar

1c. water

1T blueberry vodka (regular works too)

Wash and carefully peel your nectarines. This is a project- sit down in front of your favorite show and take your time. If your nectarines are as ripe as they should be, you will need to be very careful- use a paring knife please! Once you have peeled the nectarines, cut the fruit away from the pit. Make sure you get as much as you can!

In a bowl, combine the nectarine pieces, blueberries, and sugar. Cover and refrigerate for 3 hours. Add water & vodka. Puree in blender or food processor. Put through a strainer. Churn & freeze!

This is the first sorbet I've made in awhile that isn't crystal-y and has a smooth texture. I am very happy with how this one turned out! Let me know how it works out for you :)

Concept: Don't Call Me Shirley! Sorbet

I have been sitting here, all morning, pouting because I want to make ice cream. Needless to say, this desire has struck the day before payday when I am unable to galavant and find interesting ingredients. So I do what every ice cream making fiend does- I rummage! What do you do when life gives you lime juice, grenadine, and cherries? Make Shirley Temples of course! And dollface, you are the inspiration for today's ice cream adventure.

Non-traditional (aka fruitless) sorbets are quite difficult because you are basically manipulating sugar water to not taste like...well...sugar water. These NTS are usually best accomplished if you are working with a concept that will not be achieved by adding dairy. Teas, extracts, herbs, and spices are usually what work best with the NTS but can also wind up being terrible.

I currently would much rather be playing around with the reactions of non-dairy yogurts in ice cream, but alas, that will have to wait. For now, it's Temple-Time.

Don't Call Me Shirley! Sorbet

2 1/2c. water

1c. sugar

1/4c. lime juice

2T. grenadine

2T. liquid from maraschino cherries

cherries for garnish.

Dissolve sugar in water over heat. Add lime juice, grenadine, and cherry liquid. Cool & Churn. Freeze until firm and serve with cherries as garnish.

All in all, it's a summer treat that's fun for kids. It's a cool twist on a favorite drink that can be served as a scoop on a cone or in a glass filled with lemon-lime soda. If you're looking for simple-stick with a regular Shirley Temple, but if you want to have some fun with it this is for you. Please keep in mind that there is no nutritional benefit to this NTS or to Shirley Temples in general- Grenadine, Soda, and Maraschino Cherries are literally all sugar. Please be sure to limit how many Shirley's your kiddo has, especially if they are still losing teeth- don't want to rot them out before they have a chance to grow!

Infusion: Lemon & Olive Oil Sorbet

Mmmm, sorbet, it has been quite some time since I devoted time to the fresh and fruity cousin of traditional ice cream. I've even made granita since I last made sorbet! Jeez, what is this!? Well, my Mocha Latte triumph inspired me to continue my experimentation using household ingredients. Of course, my household ingredients aren't always as convenient as others. For example, not everyone has a bowl of kuzu root in their pantry, but I do! If you do not have any of this, I recommend getting some.You can get it at Asian markets, and I actually got mine at Whole Foods. It was $1.99 for quite a lot. Especially since you only need 1 tablespoon at a time- and you never know when it will come in handy. Basically, I use kuzu root as a stabilizer and emulsifier since I do not use eggs in my ice creams or sorbets. I know, you think I am a crazy person, "there are no eggs in sorbet!" Correct, however, stay tuned because I will explain this in a moment.

If you've ever made a vinaigrette, you know that oils tend to separate from other liquids. I know, ice cream addicts like us tend to avoid our leafy lunch options, but bear with me. What would make the oil act any differently in an ice cream or sorbet than it would in a salad dressing? It wouldn't! So let's dig a little deeper- when you are making an emulsified dressing, you need to add...an emulsifier...you see? Generally this is egg yolk or mustard...buuut since we don't want either of those in our sorbet, we will use our good old pal kuzu. He will do the very same thing that the egg would do, but will 1) be vegan and 2) actually has a lot of medicinal qualities.

Kuzu or "Kudzu" has actually shown to help with allergies, nasty hangovers, and migraines. In addition, long term use of this root has proven (in mice, idk about humans) to significantly decrease the effects of postmenopausal hypertension and type II diabetes. Of course, all the sugar in the sorbet won't really help you, but it is always good to know when your alternative ingredients are actually beneficial rather than detrimental. To the recipe!

Lemon & Olive Oil Sorbet

12 lemons- juiced (or 1c. lemon juice...I discourage this)
1c. sugar
1c. water

1T tequila or vodka

1/4c. olive oil

2T kuzu root

I'm going to take a minute to talk about these ingredients. 1) I recommend using Meyer Lemons...they are delicious and will have a more powerful flavor than using bottled lemon juice. 2) I used powdered sugar because I did not have any real sugar in the house (which makes it no longer standard vegan). I recommend making a simple syrup out of your usual sugar and water and using that. 3) I typically try to use alcohols that will be beneficial to the flavor of my product. You can always substitute them with vodka, but the alcohols I list are the ones I feel will impact the flavor best. The alcohol is used to keep the product from overhardening. 4) I would not use a strong or expensive olive oil for this. While you do want the flavor, you do not want it to overpower the lemon.

the instructions: Combine the first four ingredients, and set aside. In a blender, puverize kuzu root until it is a powder. Add the olive oil and blend until homogeneous. slowly add the lemon juice and blend just until emulsified. Churn immediately and then freeze until firm. I would serve a big scoop of this with some fresh or frozen fruit. Yum!

Citrus Trio

Concept from Ice Cream Galore by Caroline Barty

Citrus Trio
Lemon curd ice cream, grapefruit sorbet, and clementine granita

same ice creams, different plating

Out of the three, the lemon curd was my least favorite. I had to make homemade curd, which was essentially a cold hollandaise sauce, therefore the ice cream tasted like a frozen one. The grapefruit sorbet was super smooth and had the tartness of a fresh grapefruit. However, combined with the super sweetness of the clementine granita, the create a wonderful harmony.

The photos didn't turn out especially well...both were taken at night with poor lighting, and the first picture was spur of the moment without any sort of garnish. I would like to make this a successful dish, but the lemon curd ice cream has got to go. I could potentially replace it with a lemon gelato or perhaps a lime semifreddo.

Apple Cider Sorbet

It's fall, so along with all the pumpkin-y goodness it is almost mandatory that everyone has a little apple cider around. Sure, the four gallons we have in our refrigerator might be overkill, but 1) hello, free 2) hello, tasty. I froze half of it to break out later for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I saved some of it for sorbet.

Apple Cider Sorbet

6c. apple cider
1/2T. cinnamon
1/2c. sugar
2 apples - quartered

Combine all ingredients and simmer for 15 min. Chill. Remove apples and churn for about 25min. Freeze overnight.

Cider already has so much sugar that it doesn't require much. While a few more mulling spices probably would have rounded out the flavor a lot more, I think it was fine with just the cinnamon and extra apple. To serve, I cut some apples in half and hallowed them out with a paring knife and scooped the sorbet into them. The texture wasn't at all ice-crystal-y like I expected...it was actually pretty smooth.

pg. 233 Pomegranate and Orange Blossom Water Creams

Oh internet, how I have missed you! My scientific musings have been on the fritz ever since my internet decided it no longer wanted to be a part of my life. But here we are, back with more beautiful iced treats, and botched experiments from beyond the freezer.

My favorite part of this project has matching my experiments with seasonal ingredients. For example, it's pomegranate season, so why not go for it? I thought that this would be a great recipe. But alas, I was proven wrong again. This book thoroughly enjoys making a fool of me, it seems. I mean the recipes just mock me, Biggest gripe? Not enough pomegranate. The heavy cream just mutes everything. And when I added an extra 4 tablespoons of pomegranate juice, all it did was increase the acidity, not the flavor. A little bit of orange blossom water goes quite far, but has a perfume-y flavor that does not work well with the recipe at all.

Pomegranate and Orange Blossom Water Creams

2t. corn flour
1c. milk
2T sugar
2 pomegranates (juiced)
2T orange blossom water
5T grenadine
1c. heavy cream

Simmer the corn flour, milk, and sugar. Chill. Add pomegranate juice, orange flower water, and grenadine. Fold in heavy cream just before churning. Freeze in freezer proof container or silicone muffin tins for a better shape. Garnish with leftover pomegranate seeds.

Frustrated with this failure, I decided to try it again my own way; as a sorbet. This way I wouldn't have to worry about the fat of the cream masking all my flavor, and hopefully my two main ingredients would get their time to shine. When formulating sorbets, I generally try to keep it to a 2/1 ratio of fruit juice or puree to agave or simple syrup.

Pomegranate and Orange Blossom Sorbet
2 pomegranates - juiced (makes approx 1c. juice)
1/2 T. orange blossom water
1/2 c. agave nectar
1/4t. red wine

I whisked everything together and threw it in the ice cream maker. While the flavor was stronger, the combination was still..well..disgusting. I won't lie. It tasted like a perfume, or like I decided to nibble on a flower or something. The texture was fine...and even drizzled with some honey it was bearable...but I would not recommend this recipe or my revision.

Imagination: Blueberry Thyme

A couple weeks ago, I was reading through Culinary Artistry trying to figure out some new and unique pairings that have probably not been done. One combination that I came across was blueberry and thyme. Well, I love both so why not! Based on some previously conducted research, I threw together an equation and began creating the sorbet base.

Blueberry Thyme Sorbet

4 pints of blueberries
1/4c. raw sugar
2c. water
2c. agave nectar
8 branches of thyme

Cook the berries, sugar, and water together until berries are soft. Puree in blender until smooth, and put in a bowl. Add the branches to the warm puree and chill for approx. 10 hours (or overnight). Strain sorbet base until smooth. Spin in ice cream maker according to maker's instructions. Freeze until firm and scoopable.

When I originally made this recipe, the sorbet was too soft. This was a result of too much sugar, and not enough water. I easily altered this by lessening the sugar in the original recipe (it was originally 2 1/2c. agave). Generally, people use simple syrup and water to alter the density of their sorbet base, but I prefer to use agave nectar in place of simple syrup. I find it to be more simple when creating the recipe, and I'm also kind of a sucker when it comes to natural sweeteners (I once tried making caramel with raw sugar...an ultimate fail). It's usually a lot easier to create recipes and execute sorbet recipes if you have a refractometer. That is a tool to help you measure the density (and therefore whether you need to add sugar or water) of the base rather than guessing.

I think that the flavors go quite well together. Unlike the peach cardamom, you can distinctly taste the separation in flavor, but it's definitely not a bad thing.


What do you think would pair well with this?