One of summer’s greatest gifts is ice cream. I rarely eat ice cream during the rest of the
year, but in the summertime I consume it several times a week. When I was young, my parents used to buy one
gallon tubs or boxes of vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, or Neapolitan ice cream. Grocery store ice cream choices have expanded significantly since my childhood, and the exotic flavors that were
only available at ice cream parlors are now sold at grocery and convenience stores across
the country.
I had not made ice cream until a few years ago when my friend Yvonne showed
me her recipe for Thai tea ice cream.
Since then I’ve been dreaming of owning an ice cream maker; my wish
recently came true through a gift from a friend.
We inaugurated our new ice cream maker with this refreshing lemon
sorbet. Sorbets are frozen sugar water flavored
with fruit or alcohol. Unlike ice cream,
they do not contain milk, cream, or eggs.
Sorbets are sometimes served as a palette cleanser between multi-course
meals; more often they are served as a dessert at the end of a meal.
The word ‘sorbet’ either comes from the Latin sorbetto meaning a mixture of solid and liquid food or the Arabic sharbat meaning drink or juice. There are many stories about the origin of
sorbet. Some claim that it was invented
by Roman Emperor Nero and others suggest that Marco Polo brought back a sorbet
recipe from China. Whatever its origin,
sorbet is an increasingly popular summer treat.
Watch this space for other inventions enabled by our new ice cream
maker!
Ingredients
1 cup fresh lemon juice (approximately 6 lemons)
2 1/2 cups water
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
Directions
1. Juice
the lemons and set aside.
2. In
a medium saucepan, combine 3/4 cup water and all the sugar. Grate the zest of two or three lemons
directly into the mixture.
3. Heat
until the sugar is dissolved, stirring frequently. Remove from the heat and transfer to a glass
dish. Add remaining water and lemon
juice. Mix well.
4. Cover
and cool in the refrigerator, preferably overnight. The colder the mixture, the more likely it
will produce an even texture in the ice cream maker. The mixture may be kept in this state for
several weeks.
5. Prepare
sorbet in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
6. Transfer
the mixture to a freezer-safe container to ripen for several hours. The mixture should still be soft when you do
this; resist the desire to over-churn as it will produce a dry and fluffy texture. Do not serve directly from the
ice cream maker.
7. Serve
as a palette cleanser or dessert. Best
served with other sorbets or topped with a drizzle of limoncello.
