Pineapple sorbet
Pineapple as pulp, tropical and very aromatic, with exactly the acidity it needs not to cloy. Few things refresh like it.
Pineapple contains bromelain, an enzyme that breaks down proteins. In a sorbet it has nothing to attack, but the same pulp in a dairy ice cream would leave it bitter and with the texture wrecked.
Ingredients
For 1 kgTick each ingredient as you get it ready.
Need to adjust the formula?
Step by step
9 steps · follow the order for the best result
Chef's notes
- ·The pineapple goes in after ageing: onto the already-aged syrup, and you churn straight away.
- ·Do not skip the cold ageing: it hydrates proteins and stabiliser and clearly improves the texture.
- ·The serving temperature depends on your recipe: if you formulate to a softer PAC than your freezer (say -11 °C with the chest at -18 °C), temper it for 5–10 min before serving; if the PAC matches your freezer, it can be eaten straight out.
- ·Why formulate at -11 and not at -18 °C: even though your freezer sits at -18 °C, formulating at -11 makes the ice cream tastes better — at -18 it is so cold that the taste buds barely pick up the flavour and the fat is slow to melt in the mouth. And keeps better: ice cream formulated at -11 and kept at -18 has less free water, suffers less from Ostwald ripening (ice crystals joining and growing) and keeps its creaminess longer.
- ·Keep your own notes: write down the POD and PAC that work best with your machine.
The texture
spot on
Juicy and with some fibre, which is what pineapple leaves however much you blend it. Its acidity is high and gets on well with the cold: it genuinely refreshes and cleans the palate more than any other fruit on the list.
Everything about this pineapple sorbet
The syrup is made separately and the fruit goes in at the end: pineapple pulp, and plenty of it. With no fat and no dairy, the body is held up by the sugars and by inulin, pure fibre that adds dry matter without sweetening. The sorbet lands on the solids a sorbet should have.
38 DE glucose leads, with dextrose and very little sucrose behind. That split gives body and lowers the freezing point without cloying: the sweetness is among the most restrained in the house, and the serving temperature is the usual one. With pineapple, sweet and sharp at once, more sugar would only mask the fruit.
The timing is the striking part: the pineapple is neither pasteurised nor aged with the syrup. It is added once the base has aged, blended, and goes straight into the machine. That way the sorbet tastes of raw pineapple, which is the whole point.
The ingredients and what each does
The fruit brings the flavour, the colour and much of the water in the mix. Sucrose and dextrose set the sweetness and the hardness at serving temperature. Glucose adds body and barely sweetens. Inulin adds solids with almost no sweetness, the job milk would do in an ice cream. The stabiliser holds the free water and stops crystals forming in the freezer. Water adjusts the concentration so the flavour is neither watery nor pasty.
Technique and controlling the numbers
Adjusting the POD (sweetening power) and the PAC (antifreezing power, given as a target temperature) lets you match sweetness and hardness to your taste and your machine. With the selectors in the side bar the formula recalculates itself and you will see how the amount of each ingredient changes.
Storage and common mistakes
Store at -18 °C in an airtight container and avoid freeze-thaw cycles. The commonest faults are not ageing it enough, too much sugar so it never freezes properly, and over-churning, which whips in too much air and wrecks the texture.
Recommended for this recipe
Equipment and ingredients that make the difference.
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