Pucker-up Sorbet (by Kat)

For my birthday at the beginning of the month, my dear sweet wonderful husband gave me a very fancy ice cream maker--a Cuisinart ICE-30BC series ice cream maker, to be exact. It was a bit of a selfish gift, really, since he couldn't stand the noise of our old maker. And he eats way more ice cream than I do. WAY more than I do...

He's also as skinny as a rail...a string bean...a long cool drink of water...who can eat all the ice cream he wants and not show any signs of indulgence. Let's all take a moment to hate on that, shall we?

Oh, but wait, the sweet guy gave me a really fancy kitchen toy. He's forgiven!


Our old maker required salt and ice and a safe place for all the ice and salt to slosh out. It was a back-deck kind of machine. Except that it was a machine--i.e. a motorized piece of equipment--needing electricity to drive the motor. Our deck ain't got no 'lectiricty, though, so I'd just sit in in the kitchen sink and we'd retreat to the furthest point possible and put in ear plugs.

My new maker has a bowl that stores in the freezer. It requires no salt, no ice, and almost no time! I was concerned about giving up the freezer space for the bowl. You see, we bought half a cow and a full lamb this past fall, and we have so very little room in the freezer. This is actually good from a conservation perspective, as a full freezer requires less energy to keep cold than a partially full freezer requires. But from an ice-cream maker bowl perspective, I admit to having qualms. But, when I realized the bowl was just the right size to corral the Ziploc bags of frozen huckleberries from the woods and strawberries from the garden I realized that this bowl was a welcome multi-tasker!

The first recipe I made was "Simple Chocolate Ice Cream." This did not taste simple, and will be my go-to recipe for chocolate ice cream from here on.

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 1/2 cups whole milk
3 1/4 cups heavy cream
1 tablespoon vanilla

Combine sugars and cocoa in a very large bowl. Add milk and whisk until smooth. Add cream and vanilla, mix well, and freeze according to your maker's instructions.

Now, you know very well I can't follow a recipe to save my life. So, I used a combination of half and half and 2% milk to make the whole milk. Also, I added some espresso grounds to the mix. Oh, and when I added the vanilla, I didn't' use a measuring spoon, and a cat ran underfoot, and I used a heckuva lot more vanilla than called for.

I'd bet you like to see pictures, eh?

Sorry. I made you a chocolate ice cream but I eated it all up.

So, I went to make another batch, because this is fast and easy cooking, people! But I didn't have enough dairy. What I did see in the fridge were three lemons who had been de-zested earlier in the month. Those needed to be used! I looked through the recipe booklet and found "Fresh Lemon Sorbet." Perfect! Well, almost perfect. The recipe calls fro 2 1/4 cups of fresh lemon juice. I figured I could get about half that from my lemons. Okay, half batch--perfect!


Except that I forgot to cut the water and sugar in half...

So, I decided to add a cup of bottled lemon juice. Except I didn't have a cup. But I did have lime juice!


So here's the "recipe."
3 cups granulated sugar
3 cups very hot water
2 1/4 cups of citrus juice (from freshly squeezed lemon juice, bottled lemon and lime juice)

Dissolve sugar into the very hot water. You might need to put it on the stove or in the microwave for a minute to completely dissolve the sugar. Add the juice, stir well, and freeze according to your maker's directions. I strained mine into the freezer to catch any seeds I might have missed. I'm glad I did!

straining out the seeds

after 10 minutes

after 15 minutes

after 25 minutes--done!

This came out very puckerish! I think it would have been okay to leave the juice at half strength, or maybe three quarter strength. It's good, but wowza!


Oh, and one more thing. I never showed you the cake my daughter decorated for me. I made the cake from Smitten Kitchen, and frosted it myself. Then my daughter stepped in and took it over the top!