Blueberret (Blueberry Sorbet)

Debbie and I signed up with a CSA this year, and one of the things we heard to expect finally came true. We got a lot of one thing. More than either of us would ever buy at once. However, unlike the torrid tales of suffocating under five bushels of zucchini, we had a pound and a half of blueberries!

There are a lot of different things to make from a pound and a half of blueberries, but we quickly decided to try a pure blueberry sorbet. The last time I had put blueberries through my ice cream maker, I'd made a blueberry-lemon frozen yogurt instead. This time I would make something Debbie could eat: sorbet.

I follow a pretty simple and consistent sorbet recipe no matter what fruit I use. The keys are to weigh it and to taste it before you turn it. You have to taste it because each kind of fruit, and often each batch of fruit, has a different level of sweetness.

Ingredients

• 20 ounces blueberries, washed and stems removed
• juice of one lemon, or approximately 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup corn syrup
• a pinch of salt, optional
• 2 tablespoons vodka, optional

Directions

1. Puree the blueberries in a food processor. Add lemon juice, sugar, corn syrup, and salt if using, then process until smooth.
2. Taste the mixture. If it is not sweeter than you want it to taste later, add some more sugar or corn syrup.
3. Transfer the mixture to your container, and chill in the fridge for at least one hour.
4. Turn mixture in your ice cream maker per directions, for at least 15 minutes. Add vodka, if using, approximately 2 minutes before the end.
5. Freeze the sorbet in your container overnight, but don't forget to sample it now.

He said

I use a freezer-bowl style ice cream maker, and tend to turn it for about 22 minutes. You'll learn how to eye the mixture and guess when it's ready. The vodka, sugar, and corn syrup all help prevent the result from freezing into a solid ice block, so avoid your desire to cut all the extra calories. And remember, at cold temperatures, the sweetness is muted, so make sure it's a little sweeter when you taste it at the end of pureeing.

By the way, when we say sorbet, we mean a non-dairy frozen fruit dessert. Sherbet includes milk, and Gelatto often includes eggs and milk (or cream). But sorbet, to us, has no milk or eggs.

She said

To help prevent ice crystals from forming, or that leathery texture, consider placing a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the sorbet when storing it in the freezer. This probably won't matter on your first batch because you'll eat it up too quickly, but eventually you may store the sorbet for long enough for this to matter.