Strawberry sorbet
Strawberry and nothing else: red, sharp and fruity, without a drop of milk to dull the flavour.
It is the same advance prep as the strawberry semi-sorbet: the only difference between the two recipes is that the other one carries a little dairy and this one does not.
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 strawberry goes in frozen, as you take it off the heat: it chills the mix while it works in.
- ·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
Fine, cold and deep red: half the weight is strawberry, so it tastes exactly like the fruit you used. With no fat to round it off, the result depends on ripeness more than on the formula.
All about this strawberry sorbet
The advance prep is what gives the flavour: halved strawberries, vacuum-sealed with the sucrose and 24 h in the fridge. The sugar draws the water out of the fruit and takes its place; then it is all blended and frozen.
The syrup is built with 38 DE glucose, dextrose and inulin, and the whole reaches its solids with no fat at all. The sweetness runs high — strawberry is sharp — and the serving temperature low.
The fruit goes in frozen, the moment it comes off the heat. It does two things at once: it blends in and it cools the mix, which is exactly what you want at that 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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Answers to your questions
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