# Lemon Sorbet



## leykoyla (Feb 15, 2010)

*Hello everyone!! I'm new in the forum. I'm not a professional by now but i really like to cook and i'm looking for a good school in my country to study cooking. I have a question to make.. The other days i was trying to make lemon sorbet but the result was not exactly as i thought it would be..I mean it did taste very good but it was not creamy.. It was more like frozen lemon juice..  I followed the recipe letter by letter but i guess i missed something..Thank you!!! *


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## blueicus (Mar 16, 2005)

first of all, can I see your recipe?

Second of all, homemade sorbet is very difficult, especially if you want a pure juice sorbet, a good freezing contraption is required to make the sorbet crystals small enough so that it becomes smooth in your mouth.  Traditional ice cream has enough fat and other stabilizers (such as eggs) to lower the freezing point and prevent large crystals from forming but juice has no such safeguards beyond sugar content.

So there are four ways to make your homemade sorbet creamier.

a)  Change your sugar content to consist of between 25-30% of the overall weight of the sorbet.  You can go up to around 33% and get something you can easily scoop and make great quenelles straight from the freezer but you run the risk of making your sorbet too sweet.  You can go around this by replacing a portion of your sugar with glucose or corn syrup, which is less sweet than table sugar (sucrose) and helps stabilize the mixture.  Note that fruit also has its own sugar, so if you make a sorbet with a sweeter fruit you can go a little easier on the sugar.  You can usually test this at home by placing a whole egg in your sorbet, if it floats enough to reveal a dime-sized area of shell exposed then your density should be just right.

b)  The amount of bulk matter in your sorbet also helps, thicker/pulpier mixtures such as pureed strawberries will spin nicer than watery mixes (such as lemon juice)

c)  Add a stabilizer.  Buy either a sorbet stabilizer, egg whites or a small amount of gelatin (a gram or two per liter), which will help your sorbet develop smaller ice crystals.

d)  Use a contraption that freezes your mix quickly.  A quality ice cream maker, pacojet, liquid nitrogen are all good restaurant options but as a home cook your tools are probably more limited.  A 300 dollar electric ice cream maker should be able to do okay.


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## grumio (Apr 16, 2006)

I make sorbet at home using a $45 Cuisinart 1.5 quart ice cream maker.  Works great.

The other antifreeze ingredient is alcohol.  Vodka is very versatile, particularly for extracting flavors from herbs & spices.  A lot of recipes call for putting herbs or spices in the sugar syrup.  You'll get a lot more bang by steeping them in an ounce or two of vodka.  Star anise/graprefruit, rosemary/lemon, etc.


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## leykoyla (Feb 15, 2010)

I write bellow the recipe that I used for the sorbet...200g/7oz sugar 200ml/7fl oz water200ml/7fl oz lemon juicezest of 1 lemon1 heaped tablespoon mascarponePre-freeze a shallow 20-25cm container. Put the sugar and the water into a pan and bring to boil, then turn the heat down and continue to simmer for 5 minutes. Once the liquid is clear and syrypu, remove it from the heat and allow it to cool for 15 minutes, then add the lemon juice and zest. Next, add the mascarpone and stir until totally combined.Pour into your pre-frozen dish and return it to the freezer- leave it for at least an hour before you check it. If it has started to freeze, fork it up a bit.I found it in Jamie's Oliver cookbook with recipes from Italy... Thank you all very much for your suggestions. I want to try it again as soon as possible.


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## blueicus (Mar 16, 2005)

The proportions are good for a sorbet (though technically a sorbet shouldn't have butterfat in it), but the method of freezing points more to a granita style of ice, which yields a granular, icy product.  To make a smoother product you will need a machine that can churn the mixture continually while it freezes.  You can start with a manual hand crank device or an inexpensive electric churner for less than 50 dollars and move up to more expensive models that have their own refrigeration unit.


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## insanegecko (Oct 1, 2011)

how much egg white would you say to put in?

and does the floating egg trick work regardless of what you add to the mix??

im assuming the floating egg is a function of density/ specific gravity?


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