Sorbet Specials

Yes, still excited with the new toy (the Sunbeam Gelateria), I set off in creating ice cold treats, perfect for the weather - good 'ol Melbourne summer. I wanted to make sure that the sorbets generated from this machine will benefit from the the harvests from the garden... Too bad I killed the stevia otherwise I could have skipped adding store bought sugar too... but anyway... 

After the successful lemon and mint sorbet, I thought future desserts for entertaining would be best served from the ice cream machine! One Sunday we had some friends over for dinner who really liked their chocolate, so the treat of the night was chocolate inspired. After a little googling of recipes for inspiration, I stumbled upon a chocolate and rosemary sorbet recipe (which is apparently under  the Moroccan desserts department). Curious, I thought I'd give it a go.  A bit risky to serve an untested recipe to guests, but worst case I thought the back up plan would be store bought chocolate ice cream!

It's also very easy to make. All you need are

2 sprigs rosemary, bruised (I just bashed the stems with a pestle)

60g coco powder - I used Cadbury

500ml water

Place all ingredients in a saucepan and simmer until the sugar melts. Bring to a boil for a bout a minute or two, stirring occasionally. Take the pan off the heat and let the rosemary steep into the mixture - I kept tasting every 15minutes just to check for the intensity of the rosemary as I really wasn't sure what to expect! I left both sprigs until the mixture has cooled, took the sprigs off and churned the mixture in the ice cream maker. Done! I served the sorbet with a chocolate bark, simply made by melting 200g of 70% dark chocolate and poured on top of chopped dried apricots, pistachios and sultanas.

 although I probably have to improve my scooping skills to have a more perfectly shaped sorbet!

Meanwhile, the plums in the backyard have been flourishing, and this time around we have been harvesting more than we can consume as the possums cannot take their share - husband has draped bird netting over the plum tree - lesson learned from last year's disaster when the possums raped the tree and only left pips.

Some of the plums were big, some were small and cute, but all of them were tasty. Well, at least to me!

So I took about 800g worth of plum flesh (left the skin on), added the juice and zest of half a HUGE lemon (also from the backyard). The ice cream machine's capacity is 1 litre, and because the mixture will expand, the ingredients are not supposed to exceed 850mls. 

It went into a blender with about 3/4 cup of caster sugar and 2 tablespoons of brown sugar. I really wasn't sure about the final white sugar measurements as I didn't want to add much sugar, and I started with 1/2 cup and just kept adding a touch here and there until I thought about adding brown sugar just for a bit more depth in the sweetness. At this point I was debating as to add any spice... my hands were twitching and itching to reach out into the pantry for something like star anise or aniseed... Then I opened the door of the drinks cabinet... and thought, hmmmm... Ouzo maybe?

Since alcohol deters freezing, the alcohol had to be added later in the process. After passing the blitzed red mixture through a sieve, it went to the ice cream machine, and then I just stirred in 2 capfuls of Ouzo when it was almost done and placed the mixture into a freezer safe container. 

The next concoction is a kaffir lime and lemon verbena sorbet... Twelve bruised kaffir limes, nine leaves from the lemon verbena, 1 dried chili (just to intensify the taste), 1 cup sugar and 2.5 cups of water were boiled and  left to cool to infuse. I find the taste very interesting!

let the flavors mingle

I could keep going for a while so please bear with me as I get a slight obsession with this machine! Still thinking about the next set of flavors to experiment with.... Something along the lines of thyme plus maybe something with alcohol... stay tuned!