Plum Sorbet

I made plum sorbet from the Simply Recipes blog and it turned out beautifully. It really tasted like plums and, in my opinion, tasted even better than plums, if that makes any sense. I think that's because the strongest flavor from a plum is in its peel and peel particles are blended throughout the sorbet. It was also a lot less messy than eating a juicy-ripe plum.

I substituted one tablespoon of Cointreau for the Grand Marinier and the texture was the best of all the sorbet recipes I've tried so far. Since I'm still stubbornly refusing to use corn syrup in my sorbet, I may consider trying to add a little bit of alcohol to my other sorbet recipes, since it improved the texture so much.

Coconut Lime Sorbet

Last night, I made coconut lime sorbet, by modifying this recipe.

Since I only had unsweetened coconut milk, I added 3/4 of a cup of sugar to 1 cup of water and stirred it while bringing it to a boil. I let it boil for 2 minutes without stirring and then took it off the stove to cool.

I juiced 5 or 6 limes for 1/2 a cup of lime juice.

I opened my 13.5 oz. can of Thai unsweetened coconut milk. I wasn't sure what to expect when I opened the can, but it doesn't smell anything like the overly-processed sweetened-shredded coconut that goes in my macaroons.

Finally, I combined all three liquids and put the mixture in the sorbet maker for about 25 minutes. I put it in the freezer overnight and tried it. Actually, I ate what didn't go in the freezer and that was quite good already, so I was optimistic about the finished product. I tried it tonight with my Most Faithful Guinea Pigs and we all seemed to enjoy it. The combination is a little unusual, but I liked it. I was pleased that I didn't make it too sweet and it also wasn't too sour. It makes me eager to try a pineapple version once I get a blender.

Second Sorbet Attempt - Red Zinger

Since the orange sorbet was such a success, I was eager to try something else. Due to the lack of conveniently located fresh fruit and a fondness for iced Red Zinger, I decided to try Red Zinger sorbet. I found a recipe from Food & Wine, but I decided not to follow it. In hindsight, I'm not sure whether that was a good idea or not. It calls for a quarter of the sugar that I used and you steep the tea with the sugar. When I've tried to replicate Pyewacket's superb iced Red Zinger, I've noticed that if you sweeten the tea before it cools, it almost has a medicinal flavor. If you add the sugar after it cools, it's more like adding a packet at the table. Still, adding a packet and adding a whole cup of sugar are two different things.

I imagined that 4 tea bags of Red Zinger in 2 cups of water would be more tart than 2 cups of orange juice, so I thought that boiling 1 cup of sugar in 1 cup of water for the syrup would actually be on the sour side. I didn't have any grapefruit juice, so I used about a cup of grapefruit IZZE soda.


It froze beautifully in the sorbet maker, but then I put the container in the door of my freezer, which was probably a mistake. I'm betting it melted some before it refroze.


It actually tastes pretty good, perhaps even surprisingly good, but it's not as good as the orange sorbet, by any means. The texture was not as smooth as the orange sorbet, probably because I suspect it actually contains less sugar overall, even though it tastes sweeter. This is a case where the corn syrup probably would come in handy, but I want to try this recipe again without substituting with wild abandon and I'd like to try using pure hibiscus tea, rather than Red Zinger. I have plenty of loose hibiscus tea at the office and it's extremely tart.

First Sorbet Attempt

Yesterday, I tried out my new Cuisinart Sorbet / Ice Cream / Frozen Yogurt maker for the first time to make orange sorbet. I wanted to find a recipe that didn't call for high fructose corn syrup and thought this recipe sounded perfect. I used these weird navel oranges that looked and smelled like grapefruit, but tasted like oranges. The recipe calls for 4 oranges and that's kind of imprecise, because I had more than enough liquid with the syrup and the large oranges without having to add any water. The sorbet maker worked like a charm. I added the liquid and let it turn for about 25 minutes. In the photo, you can see the view from the top as it was spinning around. The result was a liquidy slushy, which I poured into a screw-top ziplock container and put in the freezer. The sorbet maker instructions said that it needed to go in there for a minimum of 2 hours, so I figured 24 hours would do nicely.
I ended up with excellent sorbet and even subjected non-family members to it. It was pretty hard when we took it out of the freezer, so it needed to sit out for about 20 minutes. After that it was pretty much the perfect consistency. I'll definitely use this recipe again, but I'm also eager to try out other flavors. Thanks for recommending the Cuisinart, Camilla!