The 4th of Sorbet
Important lessons were learned this weekend about Mom, apple pie, baseball, fireworks, and sorbet.
Ok, mainly just sorbet.
Lesson one is: Do not buy ridiculously overpriced organic blueberries for purposes of crushing them into sorbet during July. There are several reasons not to do this. One is that said blueberries taste faintly of soap even after several washings, leading one to believe they were left on the bush a little too long. Another is that they are ridiculously overpriced organic blueberries, and as such are frankly not worth the scratch. The whole reason my sorbet-making adventure began was to find something to do with fruit that was teetering on the edge of extinction (or at least the compost pile), which means purchasing fruit specifically for sorbeting kind of defeats the purpose of the enterprise. Yeah, it makes sense when I want to dabble in kiwi or mango or papaya, but blueberries? Insanely priced blueberries? The season is over. Time to move on.
Lesson two is: Don't mess with the booze. I've been having good results putting a splash of Grand Marnier into the mix to aid with texture. Because of the utter chaos of our booze cabinet at the moment, I grabbed Cointreau instead this time. I don't know if the issues I had can be laid at the feet of that particular libation, but I'm going back to the other stuff next time.
Lesson three is: Pineapple will fool you. Oh, sure, it looks solid and fiber-y and like it would make a good base for a nice sorbet, but that's just it's cover. Once you introduce it to the business end of a stick blender, it goes to pieces faster than a politician asked a tough question. Unless you're going to mix it with something with a little more gumption - the aforementioned mango is a good idea - the sorbet's barely going to hold itself together, at least until you get it into the freezer. At that point, it will do a sudden volte-face, go rock-hard, and mock your feeble attempts to assault its integrity with something so feeble as a spoon.
In summary: two sorbets attempted. Blueberry-grape, while decent in terms of texture and color, gets points knocked off because the damn organic blueberries were too busy saving the whales to be tasty. Grape-pineapple, while getting full points for tastiness, passive-aggressively let me know that its preferred format would have been "Smoothie", or perhaps "Orange Julius".
Ah well, On to next time.
Ok, mainly just sorbet.
Lesson one is: Do not buy ridiculously overpriced organic blueberries for purposes of crushing them into sorbet during July. There are several reasons not to do this. One is that said blueberries taste faintly of soap even after several washings, leading one to believe they were left on the bush a little too long. Another is that they are ridiculously overpriced organic blueberries, and as such are frankly not worth the scratch. The whole reason my sorbet-making adventure began was to find something to do with fruit that was teetering on the edge of extinction (or at least the compost pile), which means purchasing fruit specifically for sorbeting kind of defeats the purpose of the enterprise. Yeah, it makes sense when I want to dabble in kiwi or mango or papaya, but blueberries? Insanely priced blueberries? The season is over. Time to move on.
Lesson two is: Don't mess with the booze. I've been having good results putting a splash of Grand Marnier into the mix to aid with texture. Because of the utter chaos of our booze cabinet at the moment, I grabbed Cointreau instead this time. I don't know if the issues I had can be laid at the feet of that particular libation, but I'm going back to the other stuff next time.
Lesson three is: Pineapple will fool you. Oh, sure, it looks solid and fiber-y and like it would make a good base for a nice sorbet, but that's just it's cover. Once you introduce it to the business end of a stick blender, it goes to pieces faster than a politician asked a tough question. Unless you're going to mix it with something with a little more gumption - the aforementioned mango is a good idea - the sorbet's barely going to hold itself together, at least until you get it into the freezer. At that point, it will do a sudden volte-face, go rock-hard, and mock your feeble attempts to assault its integrity with something so feeble as a spoon.
In summary: two sorbets attempted. Blueberry-grape, while decent in terms of texture and color, gets points knocked off because the damn organic blueberries were too busy saving the whales to be tasty. Grape-pineapple, while getting full points for tastiness, passive-aggressively let me know that its preferred format would have been "Smoothie", or perhaps "Orange Julius".
Ah well, On to next time.
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