16 Ice Cream and Sorbet Recipes (2024)

FAQs

What is the ratio of stabilizer to sorbet? ›

Mix into cold liquids to a ratio of 100g stabiliser to 1 litre of liquid. Leave for 24 hours before churning for best results. Size: 500g.

The optional egg white helps to stabilize, emulsify, and preserve the texture of the sorbet if you are going to keep it in your freezer for a few days.

The major difference between the two is that sherbet is made with dairy and sorbet isn't. Sherbet has more of a creamy texture that you'd expect from ice cream thanks to ingredients like milk, heavy cream, or buttermilk in the mix. Sorbet, on the other hand, is simply sugar and fruit.

Without fat from dairy or eggs, it's the suspension of sugar within the fruit purée that allows the sorbet to churn into something with a creamy mouthfeel. You need 20-30% sugar in your sorbet, which will come from your fruit plus some added sugar.

Making Perfectly Smooth Sorbet

Too little sugar and the sorbet becomes icy, too much and it can be slushy — hit the sugar level just right and the sorbet will taste creamy and melt evenly across your tongue.

The most common ones used in ice creams are guar gum, cellulose gum and carob bean gum. They are used to reduce ice crystal growth, deliver flavour cleanly, increase smoothness, body and creaminess and slow down melting. They also help hold the air bubble structure together and give the ice cream a better texture.

Since every fruit is different, every sorbet may need more or less sugar (less for super-sweet mangoes, for instance). Thicker fruits may need to be watered down while thin juices need bulking up with thickeners. You'll also have to add acid (lemon or lime juice are best) and salt to taste.

Since alcohol doesn't freeze, the vodka helps add smoothness to the the crunchy, icy texture of the sorbet. I made mine with Heritage Distilling Company's vodka. Triple distilled with a smooth finish, it's the perfect addition to this refreshing dessert.

Too little sugar and you end up with loads of crunchy ice crystals. Some experts swear by a ratio of 4 cups puréed fruit to 1 cup sugar. If you don't have an ice-cream maker, place the sorbet mixture in a sealed container in the very coldest part of your freezer (usually at the bottom and back).

Sorbet has less calories than ice cream and other frozen desserts, and no fat. It's fruit content also makes it rich in vitamin C. Any downsides? That fruit content also means it contains a fair bit of sugar, and if we're comparing it with ice cream and gelato, it has less calcium, vitamin A and iron.

Why is gelato so expensive? ›

The slower, more manual and labour-intensive process of making gelato increases production costs, affecting its price. Denser with less air, offering more product by weight in each serving. Lighter and fluffier due to higher air content, resulting in less actual product by weight.

In fact, the biggest difference between sorbet and Italian ice may be their origin. Italian ice is the Italian version of creamy dairy-free ice while sorbet is of French origin. In addition, sorbets often contain liquor flavors while Italian ices do not generally contain alcohol but may compliment it well.

In this recipe, we use tapioca starch to thicken the sorbet mixture, which gives a velvety texture to the sorbet, but you can use corn starch if this is what you have. Thickening the sorbet mixture with a starch gives it body, which makes the sorbet expand during churning and become fluffy.

The more the temperature fluctuates up and down, the larger the water crystals become inside the sorbet, making the it less creamy and with a crunchy feel. When placed in the storage freezer, the Sorbet should always be stored in its tray and covered with parchment paper or clear film to avoid any loss of humidity.

As water starts to freeze in a syrup, the unfrozen water becomes, in effect, a more concentrated syrup. This process continues until you have a bunch of small ice crystals in a sea of syrup so concentrated that it'll never really freeze.

Usage: Up to 8gm per L Sorbet. Add to base before blending in and allow to stand 30mins before churning.

One option is to allow the sorbet to melt in the fridge overnight and simply re-churn. But if you don't care to add the extra effort of re-freezing, another option is to incorporate a stabilizer into the original base. The three best options are alcohol, pectin, and gelatin.

Q: Can you use the ice cream stabilizer to replace the sorbet stabilizer, or will this destroy my sorbet? A: We do not recommend using them interchangeably as they are geared towards different applications.

Measuring stabilizers

Gums are so powerful, that you only need to use a tiny amount: typically between 0.1 and 0.5% of the weight of the base mixture. And if you go just slightly above these proportions, you'll start to get over stabilized ice cream, which can be quite unpleasant.