Happy Warm days of summer …. almost. Alright, Happy Warm days of Spring!
Let’s celebrate with Triple Berry No Added Sugar Sorbet. As much as I wanted to call the sorbet sugar-free, the truth is it isn’t. Fruit contains natural sugars, sugars I don’t have the capability or desire to process out. According to US Food and Drug Administration guidelines (FDA for short) , food has to have less than 0.5 grams of sugar per serving to be labeled “sugar free.” Fresh and frozen fruit have well over 10g sugar per serving. But it’s all natural sugars. With that said, I did not use any additional processed sugars.
I learned some valuable lessons making sorbet.
- Apparently when you use a blender, you generally need to use soft foods, or a substantive amount of liquid to be able to blend contents properly. I learned that real quick when I dumped frozen berries directly into the blender and expected it to work its magic. Pro Tip: if you’re working with frozen berries, defrost them or soften them up before putting them directly into the blender.
- You don’t need an ice cream machine to make sorbet. It just takes a little extra work. If you’re only making ice cream or sorbets a handful of times a year, and you don’t want to invest in in an ice cream maker, I have a solution for you. Actually, Taste of Home has a solution for you. It worked really well for me, even though I was making sorbet vs. ice cream. You’ll see in the instructions, you’ll need to stir up your sorbet vigorously every 30 or so minutes for a couple hours, just to keep it from icing over. If it does ice over, put the sorbet into the fridge and it’ll soften up.
- Red foods get EVERYWHERE. I should have already known this. I’m talking dishes, counters, hands, clothes, everywhere.
- Taking photos of sorbet takes an immense amount of patience. Sorbet melts, scoops don’t come out perfectly every time, and red gets everywhere (see #3), among other things. I was so lucky to have an audience when I took my photos. My brother had rushed through the house with a friend, and instructed his friend to hangout with me while I worked on my sorbet photo shoot. I instantly put the kid to work, and distinctly remember him making the comment, “I’ve never been to an ice cream photo shoot before.” Well, that made two of us. Having him around to help out got me to thinking that I need assistants more often during food photo shoots. His hard work did not go unnoticed. I rewarded him, and my brother with a couple scoops of my Triple Berry No Added Sugar Sorbet.
Ingredients
- 4 cups mixed berries (I used frozen and de-frosted them slightly. You can also use fresh, washed berries)
- 2-3 tablespoon Lemon juice, from concentrate
- 1 ripe banana
Instructions
- Place the mixed berries and ripe banana into a blender with lemon juice.
- Blend until very smooth
- Pour the mixture into a freezer-safe container
- Chill in the freezer for 30 minutes, then stir by hand with a spatula or whisk and return to the freezer
- Continue to stir the sorbet every 30 minutes for about 4 hours.
- Store in a closed freezer-safe container until ready to serve.
