Scoopable Strawberry Sorbet

It is a hot summer day, and nothing will cool you off faster and give you a little kick of sweetness than some homemade sorbet. In this super simple recipe of only three ingredients; strawberries, honey, and lemons, you can be on your way to becoming the next big thing that hit your block since the fireworks on the fourth of July. Also, this is another great recipe to use up all those strawberries from the local farm.

First though, we need to dive into the technical side of what we are making. What exactly is a sorbet? Sorbet (sometimes referred to as Italian ice) is a frozen delight that contains only fruit and sugar – no dairy. It can be churned, to make it more scoopable, but this is not a requirement. If you have ever been to a fancy restaurant that with multiple courses, they likely will serve sorbet as a palette cleanser. This is because of the light and refreshing combo make it extremely effective at cleaning the tongue of any flavors left in the mouth. Typically, sorbet as a palette cleanser will be more focused on the fruit with little added sweetener, if any at all.  

There are numerous different ways to make a sorbet, some only call for two ingredients, some say you need an ice-cream churner, others even call for a little booze to be thrown into the mix (P.S. I can’t wait to try this out). The moral of the story though is that all of these are great resources to making yourself a delectable treat. When it comes down to it, it all depends on how much time you have or more accurately, how much time you are willing to spend on making this. I do not own an ice cream churner, so I knew that what I came up with needed to be done with what I did have, which is a food processor. I would highly recommend to use a large food processor, it’s easier and works better in my opinion. Personally, I have the KitchenAid model but any large food processor will suffice. You could likely make this work in a blender as well, if you have a good one, but no guarantees on that since I have not tried it.

What you need

• 5 cups of strawberries

• 3/4 cup of honey

• 1 lemon for juice and zest

 Directions

1. Rinse strawberries and hull.

2. Transfer strawberries to food processor and add juice of one lemon, half of lemon zest, and honey. Blend until smooth.

3. Pour the mixture into a freezer safe container (bread pan) and freeze.

4. Once frozen, remove from freezer and cut into chunks and blend in food processor. Return to pan once blended and put back in freezer to firm up. After firming up, Enjoy! (FYI: The sorbet can be eaten immediately after blending if you would like)

5. Store in freezer for up to two weeks.

Once your strawberries are hulled, you will need to add in a the juice of one lemon and half of the zest to the mixture for two reasons; 1) it’s acidic and will help balance out the sweetness from the honey and the strawberries and 2) it will help preserve that bright red coloring we are after. The coloring is less of an issue for sorbet since it is not exposed to heat but a good tip to know, nonetheless. Don’t forget the honey! This part it is really important to do little by little because you do not want to make it overly sweet. Depending on how sweet the strawberries already are will be a good guiding method. Honey can also be substituted with sugar; if swapping I would recommend starting with about a cup of sugar but again, you’ll want to add it in bit by bit.

With everything blended, you are ready to start the freezing part of this journey and here is when patience is crucial. First you will need to pour that mixture into a bread pan, cover with some cling wrap and pop it into the freezer. I have found that letting this freeze entirely, taking it out and cutting into chunks and putting back into the food processor to essentially “churn” to be very effective in making a scoopable sorbet. If you don’t, you truly are left with more of the Italian ice version where you are scraping off layers of the sorbet.

There is a more detailed method but admittedly I have never tried this method, but I have read that you can just continue to stir your mix while in the freezer, about every 30 minutes until frozen and that will have a similar effect as an actual ice cream churner. One day, when I have a bit more time, I will need to test this out.   

To serve this up, you can either just take that bread pan and go to town or scoop some into a small bowl. If going with the latter option, I like to take a bit of lemon zest and sprinkle it on top of the scoops, makes me feel fancy. Most importantly though, ENJOY!