Tangerine-Orange-Clementine Sorbet

One upside to winter is the abundance of citrus fruit. I’ve eaten countless clementines and oranges this winter, and although I’m a peel-and-eat type, when I saw this recipe in David Lebovitz’s March newsletter, I started slicing and juicing. This sorbet is beautiful to look at and fresh tasting – just the thing for an end-of-winter dessert.

The original recipe calls for all tangerine juice, but I used a combination of tangerines, oranges, and clementines, since that’s what I had on hand and I needed a lot of fruit to get enough juice (I lost count of how many pieces I used). The recipe also states that the addition of champagne is optional; I’m going to go ahead and call it required.

Tangerine (and orange and clementine) Sorbet
adapted from David Lebovitz, who adapted it from a recipe in his upcoming book, My Paris Kitchen

3 cups freshly squeezed juice, any combination of tangerine, orange, and clementine
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup champagne or sparkling wine (I used brut, which is fairly dry)

In a small saucepan, combine the sugar with 1 cup of the juice. Heat and stir until the sugar is completely dissolved. Combine the sugar/juice mixture with the rest of the juice and chill thoroughly.

Just before churning, stir in the champagne. Churn and freeze, following your ice cream maker’s instructions. Remove from freezer about 10 minutes before serving to allow it to soften before scooping.

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Tuesdays with Dorie: Unbelievably Good Chocolate Blueberry Ice Cream

Ice cream in winter? Yes, please! The Tuesdays with Dorie bakers pulled out their ice cream makers this week to make the last ice cream recipe in the book. Honestly, chocolate and blueberry didn’t sound like a great combination to me, but the story that Dorie wrote for this recipe was too funny: she stopped dating a guy because he ordered blueberry pie with chocolate ice cream! She obviously changed her mind about the combination, so I thought I should give it a try.

Thank you Laurie for hosting this recipe! She has the recipe posted today (or look on page 433 of Baking: From My Home to Yours). I also want to take a minute to thank Laurie, our group’s founder, for all she’s done over the years. I’m not sure what I expected when I joined the group, but I know I’ve gotten 1000% more out of it than I thought I would. I’m sad that it’s coming to an end, but so excited about the new group: we’ll be baking from another Dorie book, Baking with Julia!

Since TWD is coming to an end, the group is doubling up on recipes in November. The other recipe for this week is Puffed Double Plum Tart, selected by Julie of Someone’s in the Kitchen. I didn’t have a chance to make it, but check out Julie’s blog for the details.

What I did: I used all whole milk instead of a combination of whole milk and cream; I refrigerated the custard overnight before churning.

How it went: Cooking custard is not my favorite kitchen task, but all went well. Every time I make ice cream, I marvel at how easy it is! The recipe is a chocolate ice cream base with blueberry jam added after churning and before freezing.

How it tasted: The jam I used had tiny blueberries in it, and finding a blueberry in a bite of chocolate ice cream was a nice surprise. My husband liked it a lot, but didn’t think the blueberry added much; he thinks it’s hard to improve on chocolate ice cream. The chocolate ice cream itself was delicious, so the recipe is a good one to try with or without the jam.

I am finally getting back into the swing of being in the kitchen, after being away for a month. I just returned from a trip to Antarctica, South Georgia, and the Falkland Islands, where we saw lots of these:

And when I say lots, I mean lots:

The brown ones are teenage penguins

Along with some ice…

…and a lot of other things! Travel posts will be coming, hopefully before too long.

Baked Apple Sorbet

One of the things that sold me on the Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home cookbook is that it’s arranged by season. Ice cream recipes geared toward fall and winter? Sign me up! It’s fall and it’s apple season, so the recipe for Baked Apple Sorbet looked promising. To make the sorbet, you bake apples with apple cider, sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla, then puree it and chill it before freezing it in your ice cream maker. It’s all the flavors of fall in a frozen treat!

It’s great plain, but I served it with pie crust cookies and whipped cream with a little rum mixed in. The buttery cookies and spiked whipped cream played nicely with the sweet sorbet. This would be a great Thanksgiving dessert, or something a little different to serve with holiday leftovers.

This was another virtual cook-along with my friend Michele, so if you want to get the recipe and see how hers turned out, take a look at her blog. If you have a copy of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home, the sorbet recipe is on page 132, and the Pie Crust Cookies are on pages 51 and 188. I haven’t tried any other recipes from this book yet, but I’m looking forward to trying an ice cream recipe using Jeni’s ice cream base. You can read more about Jeni and her techniques in this article that Michele sent me.

Recipe notes:

• My apples needed more baking time than the recipe called for. I just kept checking them and took them out when they were tender.
• All of Jeni’s recipes call for putting the mixture into a plastic bag to chill, then snipping the corner off the bag and squeezing the contents into the ice cream canister. This sounded like a great idea…until I tried it. I’m not quite sure what went wrong, but I was happy when no plastic turned up in the sorbet. Maybe it works better for certain ice cream makers (or certain people).
• I made the pie crust cookies from a recipe in Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams. The crust has whole wheat flour and oatmeal, and it’s tasty! You could also make your favorite pie crust, roll it to 1/8 inch, and cut it into small circles. Place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet, brush with heavy cream and sprinkle with turbinado sugar. Bake 13-15 minutes at 350º.

Butterscotch Almond Cookie Cups and Classic Hot Fudge

One thing that I really like about The Perfect Scoop are the non-ice cream recipes – the mix-ins, toppings, and vessels. Most of the time, a bowl of ice cream is more than enough to make me happy, but sometimes I like to go the extra mile and dress it up.

See the Trivial Pursuit game in the background? I lost.

So, to go with my beloved Roasted Banana Ice Cream, I made Butterscotch Almond Cookie Cups and Classic Hot Fudge. The cookie cups are crisp, buttery, and are a fun way to have cookies with your ice cream. I’ve made hot fudge before and didn’t think it was anything special; this recipe is a keeper. It was thick and smooth and so satisfying mixed with a bite of cold ice cream.

Recipe notes:

• I think the cookie cup process is similar to making tuiles…but I’ve never made tuiles! I was able to work quickly enough to get four cups molded before they hardened. For the second and third batches, I did have to re-heat the batter to make it soft enough to spread on the parchment.
• I made 1/2 of the hot fudge recipe, and used Jacques Torres 60% chocolate. After a gentle reheating in the microwave, it was just as tasty on the second and third days.

You can find the recipe for Classic Hot Fudge here on Google Books.

The Google Books preview doesn’t have the recipe for the cookie cups, but David Lebovitz has a similar recipe here on his site (scroll to the end of the post for the recipe). That recipe calls for pecans instead of almonds, and is slightly different than the one in the book.

Once you get going, it's not so pretty, but it's still tasty!

Blueberry Frozen Yogurt

This Blueberry Frozen Yogurt was fantastic, even though I forgot two of the five ingredients.

At least I remembered the blueberries! I forgot the kirsch, which would have made it a bit softer, and the lemon juice, which would have “brightened” the flavor or something like that. But blueberries, yogurt, and sugar whipped up, strained, and frozen are pretty good.

Recipe notes

• I used Dannon plain full-fat yogurt.
• I have a lot of blueberries in the freezer, thanks to my in-laws giving me 10 pounds of fresh blueberries, straight from a farm in Michigan. I thawed them in the refrigerator overnight before using them.
• I strained the mixture through a regular kitchen strainer. A little bit made it through, but not much. The dark flecks add some interest, but are small enough to not affect the texture.
• It was soft enough to scoop, even without adding alcohol.

You can get the recipe here on Google Books, or from The Perfect Scoop, if you have a copy. I bet you’ll remember to include all five ingredients.

Before you go, please check out my friend Jen’s new blog, Tasty Mayhem. Jen introduced me to the joy of eating green olives on pizza years ago. Sadly, she moved away, so I don’t get to eat her delicious cooking anymore, but now I can try my hand at recreating her delicious dishes in my own kitchen. Enjoy!

Tuesdays w/Dorie: Creamy Dark Chocolate Sorbet

Ah, cool, creamy, chocolate sorbet. This was a welcome treat after spending a week in Chicago for work. It was hot outside and it was hot inside, in a room filled to the brim with people and computers. I’m not against baking in the summer, but I was happy to leave the oven turned off this weekend.

Tip of the day: This was awesome with Roasted Banana Ice Cream! I had a little bit left over in the freezer, so I scooped both flavors into a bowl together. A match made in heaven!

What I did: I made the full recipe, using 2% milk (Dorie says to go ahead and pick whatever milk you’d like) and Jacques Torres 60% dark chocolate.

How it went: The milk, water, sugar, and chocolate cook up on the stove for a bit and then chill down in the refrigerator. I churned it for quite a while (I didn’t time it) in my ice cream maker and it didn’t firm up much. Was I surprised? No, because I read the P&Q and saw some comments about this being very soft. It was still pretty soft after three hours in the freezer.

How it tasted: I was really thorough with my testing: I tried it warm, then tried it again straight out of the ice cream maker, and then again after some time in the freezer. My conclusion: it’s great at all stages! My husband, initially too busy enjoying the sorbet to comment, later said “It might be too rich for some people, but I am not one of those people.” Since there are no eggs or cream, the richness and flavor comes from the chocolate; be sure to use one that you like.

Thank you Steph from A Whisk and a Spoon for this great warm-weather pick! You can find the recipe on her blog today, or just open your copy of Baking: From My Home to Yours to page 431 and get churning!

Roasted Banana Ice Cream

I had some over-the-hill bananas on the counter, and instead of making banana bread, I opened my copy of The Perfect Scoop to the B section of the index. I knew David Lebovitz would help me make something tasty with those bananas.

David did not let me down. This ice cream is bananarific! Bananamazing! To roast the bananas, you put them in the oven with brown sugar and just a little bit of butter and stir them once during baking. So easy to do, and the bananas become incredibly tasty after their stint in the oven.

I also made Lean Chocolate Sauce from The Perfect Scoop. It’s sweet and full of chocolate flavor and went perfectly with the ice cream. There are more decadent hot fudge recipes in the book if you’d like to go that route.

I have more bananas ripening right now and I can barely wait a day or two for them to be ready for roasting.

Recipe notes

• I made this with 2% milk (the recipe calls for whole milk), and it was creamy and easy to scoop right out of the freezer. I think all the bananas help it have that nice consistency. I loved that this is not a high-fat dessert.
• I made half the amount of the chocolate sauce, which was way more than I needed for one batch of ice cream.
  

I found the ice cream recipe for you here and here (double-batch quantity), and the chocolate sauce recipe here (different name, but the recipe is the same). However, I encourage you to buy the book, or check to see if your library has it (mine does, and I borrowed it several times before I got my own copy).

Raspberry-Champagne Sorbet

Another winner from The Perfect Scoop! This one was Michele’s idea, and what a great idea it was. I used fresh raspberries and Asti instead of champagne. If you haven’t had it, Asti is super-sweet – think sparkling grape juice with alcohol. I could have cut down on the sugar, but my super-sweet version was pretty tasty. I loved how soft and smooth this was even after being in the freezer overnight. Most of all, though, I loved the shade of pink! This was a big hit with my husband too. Definitely one to make again, and I may try using Prosecco next time. Be sure to check out Michele’s version with white chocolate sauce!

The original recipe says to use a food mill or push the raspberries through a strainer. Michele used her Vitamix, which gave me the idea to use my immersion blender. I blended the mixture and then strained it to remove the seeds. It worked great! I think pushing the whole berries through a strainer would be a lot of work.

From The Perfect Scoop

1 1/4 cups Champagne or sparkling wine
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups raspberries (fresh or frozen)

Mix everything except the raspberries in a medium, nonreactive saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally to dissolve the sugar. Remove from the heat, add the raspberries, and cover the saucepan. Let stand 10 minutes. Pass the mixture through a food mill with a fine disk, or use a blender or immersion blender to puree the raspberries. Strain the mixture to remove the seeds. Chill thoroughly and then freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Watermelon Sorbetto

Have you noticed that it’s far less expensive per pound to buy a whole watermelon than it is to buy a cut piece? With two people in our house, a piece is all I really need, but a whole watermelon on sale is hard to resist.

Much of my latest melon bargain was consumed in chunks, but we also drank one batch of watermelon margaritas and I made this delicious Watermelon Sorbetto from The Perfect Scoop. I skipped the chocolate chips – aren’t most watermelons these days seedless anyway?

Thank you David Lebovitz for this delicious scoop of summer, and thank you Jessica of Cookbookhabit for sending me a copy of the book! I won her giveaway and wanted to make the same recipe she did. I’m looking forward to seeing what other recipes she churns up this summer. If you have a favorite from The Perfect Scoop, let me know!

If you want to do a trial run of the book, see if it’s at your library (mine has a copy!). You can also find the recipe here on Google Books.

Cranberry and Vanilla Bean Sorbet

It’s cranberry season! How about a refreshing cranberry dessert? This would be a great addition to your Thanksgiving meal, or would be something a little different to serve with all those Thanksgiving leftovers. Speaking of leftovers, I used some of this sorbet to make cranberry margaritas, which were delicious. I don’t have an exact recipe, but I mixed up some basic margarita ingredients and then added a few scoops of sorbet in place of some of the ice.

I found the recipe here on Effort to Deliciousness; I was actually looking on Margot’s site for the recipe for this recipe (which I also found on her site) but was excited to find a cranberry recipe since I had just received a fresh-from-the-bog bag of cranberries from my in-laws.

You can also find the recipe here on Epicurious. It’s easy to make, and I made it easier by puréeing it with an immersion blender instead of putting it into a blender in batches. Well, it was easier in theory, but I forgot to take the vanilla bean out before putting the immersion blender in, and then I had to strain out the chopped up vanilla bean. I realized my mistake right away, but my version may have had more vanilla flavor than intended!