Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Raspberry Sorbet, Toffee and Lime

When I think about foods like blue cheese or even something simple like meringue, I always wonder how people came to invent these recipes. How did someone know to leave cheese to age for a few years or beat egg whites for a long time and then bake it? Well a few nights ago I had a similar revelation: I stumbled across how to make a really great sorbet.

It started with a long day of uni work, coming home spent and having to push on into the night. I needed a raspberry smoothie. Bad. I blended raspberries, ice cubes, icing sugar and fruit juice together and found that it had the texture (if not a bit softer) of sorbet. Then I remembered from an episode of The Naked Chef that sorbet is essentially frozen sugar and water. Man am I glad I made a smoothie that night, because I never knew making sorbet was this simple!

So now that I don't have back-to-back assignments, I decided to make it again tonight with some adjustments. I added a thick sugar syrup with glucose so that it'd hold and it'd have that lovely thick texture of mango sorbet. I've got to say, I am really happy with this recipe so I hope you guys enjoy!

Raspberry Sorbet

2 milk glasses of ice cubes (smoothie measurements!)
1 milk glass of raspberries
½ cup sugar
¼ water
1 cinnamon quill
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon glucose
Icing sugar to taste

Place sugar, water, cinnamon, vanilla extract and glucose in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to the boil then simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat, take out the cinnamon quill and cool completely.

Place ice, raspberries and sugar syrup in a blender. Blend until smooth.

Depending on the sweetness of the raspberries, you may want to add icing sugar for extra sweetness.

Set in a shallow dish in the freezer overnight.

Toffee Shell

½ cup sugar

Lightly grease the backs of metal tablespoons.

Heat the sugar over medium-low heat until the it liquifies and colours slightly. Remove from heat. Cool until you can make ribbons on the surface.

Drizzle over the spoons in criss-cross patterns.

Cool the spoons in the freezer for a minute and gently remove toffee from spoon.

Set aside at room temperature.

Mould the sorbet with two tablespoons and fit the toffee shell onto one side. Serve with creme fraiche and candied lime zest. It's creamy, sweet, fruitily refreshing and the toffee adds a crunch to it.

18 comments:

  1. ooh i like your method with the toffee!

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  2. it looks so good! the toffee shell is a nice touch. i must try it sometime.

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  3. yummmo that looks delicious! good idea to drizzle toffee a spoon to make the shell. so clever!

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  4. Nice idea with both the sorbet and the shaping of the toffee. This looks like it'd be quite nice :)

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  5. Love the recipe! I've tried so many ice cream recipes without an ice cream maker, but sorbet should be easier to get the right texture to!

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  6. So true. And who thought to milk a cow?... and more importantly.. WHAT were they thinking?

    This looks incredible!

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  7. Thanks Suze, Justine, Billy, Simon and Maria!

    Shellie, true about the cow milking! I guess we have their fun-time to thank for dairy products. I was watching Bizarre Foods last night and it turns out people ate old cheese out of necessity and realised it tasted good!

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  8. looks great! i like the way you've done your photo crediting too. :-)

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  9. Hehe I also wonder how people came up with those basic, essential recipe! And the toffee is a nice, fancy touch!

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  10. Great recipe. There is nothing better than accidentally cooking something. This looks delicious and I like how you refined the recipe.

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  11. A great idea, and I love how you've given measurements in milk glasses :)

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  12. Mmm - this sounds delicious! I love the styling too - great photos!

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  13. Oohh love the toffee shell!
    Hee hee you should read Calvin and Hobbes ^^!

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  14. I've always been baffled about how bread came about...but that's a discussion for another time!

    Love sorbets and I keep making them without the aid of an ice-cream churner. Really should get myself one =)

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