KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker & Tropical Fruit Sorbet Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why is my homemade sorbet so hard? ›

If your sorbet is rock-hard after churning and freezing: Allow it to sit on the counter for 5 minutes to soften before scooping OR. Melt the base back down to liquid, add more sugar, or a bit of corn syrup, or a splash of alcohol, then re-churn and refreeze.

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. There's a very simple way to tell if your sugar levels are right: Float a large egg in the sorbet base.

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 Master Ratio

If you don't know the exact sugar content of your fruit, the best thing you can do is play it safe. A sugar concentration between 20% to 30% will generally produce a scoopable, creamy sorbet. * Add less and your sorbet is too icy to scoop; add more and it may never freeze.

The quality of the water is important as well — if your water has a bad aftertaste, so will your sorbet — so we recommend using bottled. 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.

This is important when you are thinking about the texture of your finished sorbet. If you add too much sugar your sorbet won't freeze properly and you'll end up with slush. However, if you don't add enough you'll end up with a hard block of ice, which is less than appetising. Apparently, 20 -30% sugar is about right.

It gives the sorbet even more lemon flavor and just a touch of bitterness which nicely balances the sweet and sour. There is so much flavor in lemon peel it would be a waste not to take advantage of it.

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.

Tapioca starch (or corn starch): tapioca starch fis our go-to starch to thicken a sorbet mixture, for the velvety texture it creates. If you do not have tapioca starch, you can use corn starch instead, which is not the same, but it still works.

Pectin improves viscosity and like sugar, helps to decrease the size of ice crystals. Fruit is not a natural bedfellow for no-churn ice cream with all its water content.

How do you make sorbet less watery? ›

If you are confident that you are freezing your mixture as much as you should then perhaps you could reduce the sugar or alcohol in the recipe to encourage solidification. Understand that this approach will produce a more icy texture.

1 to 2 tablespoons liqueur (this is for flavor, but it also prevents the sorbet from freezing solid. Alcohol won't freeze, so it is great insurance that you will have a soft sorbet. BUT, if you add too much sorbet won't freeze at all and you will basically have a margarita or daiquiri!)

One of the secret of great quality sorbet is that temperature fluctuations should be reduced as much as possible. 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.

Use your refrigerator

This is an easy and extremely effective solution. Depending on your container's size and the hardness of the treat, it can take 10 to 30 minutes to soften. Afterward, the product will be cold but still smooth enough to scoop out with ease.