As we know from Some Facts About Ice Cream, sorbet contains more sugar but less fat than ice cream, is non-dairy, and is usually flavored with fruit. Because you don't have to prepare a custard as part of the process, sorbet making is incredibly easy. The basic formula is water + sugar + flavor = sorbet. You don't even need an ice cream maker to get good results
Lemon sorbet is a classic, so we'll start there. Later, I'll also offer recipes for sorbets using herbs, as requested in yesterday's open thread.
Basic Lemon Sorbet
makes 2 pints, or about 5 cups
1 3/4 cups water
2 cups sugar
2 cups freshly squeezed lemon juice
1-2 tablespoons freshly grated lemon zest
In a small saucepan over medium flame, combine the water and sugar and boil for about 1 minutes, or until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat, and allow to cool. Stir in the lemon juice and lemon zest, and pour into the bowl of an ice cream maker*. Freeze according to manufacturer instructions. When sorbet is frozen (it will still seem quite soft), transfer to a storage container, cover tightly and freeze until ready to serve.
*If you do not have an ice cream maker, you can also simply transfer mixture to a 13-inch x 9-inch metal baking pan. Freeze until firm (about 2-3 hours), stirring with a fork each half hour.
More sorbet recipes:
• Recipe: Spiced Apple Sorbet
• Recipe: Spiked Lemon Sorbet
• Recipe: Basil or Mint Sorbet
Or maybe I'll make this. I can't decide.
You'll get much better lemon flavor if you cook the zest in the sugar syrup--the oils in the skin need heat to difuse. YOu can always strain it later if you don't like the bits of zest. Also, chill the lemon juice before you mix it with the syrup. And you can also steep a few lemon verbena leaves in the syrup, too.
So I just made this today, except that our local grocery store was out of lemons. Instead of going to other stores, I mixed lemons, limes, and grapefruit. It ended up tasting like sort of like Minute Maid limeade--not bad, pretty good in fact, but I kept thinking I could have just bought the damn canned mix and eaten it straight. So next time I'll either stick just with lemons, or cut down on the sugar a little--I suspect the amount of sugar is specific to having just lemons, and substituting slightly sweeter fruit made it feel like I was mainlining sugar.
I don't get it - where can you live that your ONLY grocery store was out of lemons? There are usually 3-4 stores on every block in NYC and most cities, and most suburbs there is a grocery store within 10 min.
:) Not very motivated of me, was it? I wasn't in the mood to go driving around for lemons. I stopped at the most convenient grocery store on the way home from dinner out, and when they didn't have any, I just didn't want to go looking further. In terms of distance, other grocery stores are about 10 minutes away (I'm not in the city), but in terms of traffic, there's no predicting how long it will take. It just wasn't high on my list.
They had lemons today and I bought two bags.
This is great!
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That didn't work...
THIS is great :o)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFI4OrCDKS0&feature=user
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