Homemade Sorbet and Ice Cream

My family really does gobble up the ice cream and sorbet, so I've been making plenty. I love it. It's so easy!

Let me give you a little recipe review. So far I've used the recipes from the Cuisinart recipe booklet that came with the Cuisinart ICE-30BC Pure Indulgence 2-Quart Automatic Frozen Yogurt, Sorbet, and Ice Cream Maker . For all of these recipes, you have to freeze according to your own ice cream maker's instructions. These recipes are for a 2 qt capacity ice cream maker. Please click on any picture to be taken to the larger version on my flickr pages.

I've made lots of the lemon lime sorbet. I follow the recipe for the most part- a sugar syrup made from 3 cups organic sugar and 3 cups water plus 2-1/4 cups of mixed lemon and lime juices. I use bottled organic lemon and lime juice rather than squeezing my own. I do not add zest, because the kids hate it.

I read on foodnetwork that you can pretty much make sorbet out of anything- fruit, juice, alcohols, anything that is sweet enough or that can be sweeteened. I made my own yummy pomegranate ginger sorbet by combining
1 can of flat organic ginger spritzer
1 16 oz bottle of Pomegranate juice
1-1/5 cups of sugar syrup (equal parts sugar and water).

I guessed on the sugar syrup, and it seemed to come out alright. The pomegranate juice is tart, so if you use juice alone, I'd add more sugar syrup. In my case, the spritzer filled in the extra necessary sweetness.

You can see that I started storing the frozen treats in 1/2 cup resuseable plastic containers. They are the perfect portion size and easy for the kids to serve themselves. It's amazing how we are all generally satisfied with a 1/2 cup portion when it's easy to find and eat. If we were to scoop out each portion, we would likely put in more, whatever filled a bowl.

Now for the ice cream. I tried the custard base vanilla bean ice cream from the Cuisinart recipe book. It used gobs of cream and egg yolks. It was horrible!!! It tasted fine but had the consistency of frozen butter and left us with an icky fatty coating on our tongues and teeth. We threw that batch out.

I went back to a simple ice cream, and knowing that we prefer a lighter texture, I reversed the ratios of whole milk to cream. I kept the step of infusing the vanilla bean into the milk because I really love the way the little vanilla specks look.

3 cups organic whole milk.
1-1/2 cup organic cream
1 whole vanilla bean
1-1/8 cup organic sugar ( I estimate that 1/8 cup)

Read up on infusing the vanilla bean into the milk. I basically split the bean and scrape out the goo. I put the goo and bean in the milk and cream mix, let it come to a boil, then let it simmer for 30 minutes. Turn off the heat, add the sugar and mix to dissolve. Let the whole mix cool until you can stick your finger in it without wincing. Then take out the bean and discard it, leaving all those lovely vanilla specks floating in the milk.

At that point, for Vanilla ice cream, I would add
1-1/2 tsp real vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract

For Vanilla mint ice cream, I would add
2 tsp real peppermint extract
food coloring if desired.

For both options, I like to add approximately 1 cup of finely chopped or grated chocolate. You can either grate a chocolate bar or pulverize some form of sweet chocolate in the food processor.

We love it! The texture is light. The flavor is rich and natural. The chocolate is just strong enough to enhance the flavor, but not overpower it. Yes, there is my hand, scooping the fresh vanilla mint ice cream into the 1/2 cup servings again. Just call me the queen of homemade convenience :).

**Note** You can see that I try to use all organic and natural products in our treats, especially for the high fat items like whole milk and cream. The conventional products work just fine and also taste good. So use what best fits your lifestyle and budget. We also use plenty of conventional (non-organic) products in our kitchen.