Lemon sorbet with polyols
Lemon sweetened with polyols and a pinch of aspartame: sharp, fresh and almost granita-like.
Polyols contribute solids, and each has a different sweetness and effect on the freezing point. In this recipe, maltodextrin and inulin also contribute body.
Ingredients
For 1 kgTick each ingredient as you get it ready.
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Step by step
9 steps · follow the order for the best result
Chef's notes
- ·The lemon juice, freshly squeezed and cold, with the mix already at 4 °C.
- ·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
Very cold in the mouth, more so than usual: polyols absorb heat as they dissolve and the lemon exaggerates that sensation. The maltodextrin supplies the solids sugar cannot supply here, and the result is not very dense, almost granita-like.
All about this lemon sorbet with polyols
The sugar is replaced by maltitol, sorbitol and erythritol, plus a pinch of aspartame that finishes the sweetness with a very small amount. The 18 DE maltodextrin and the inulin are there to give back some of the body lost along the way.
Even so the solids fall well below those of an ordinary sorbet, and that is the price of removing the sugar: it is a formula that runs tight on dry extract, and you can feel it on the palate.
The lemon goes in as juice, with the mix already at 4 °C, just as in the classic lemon sorbet. The serving temperature stays in band. The polyols used in this recipe sweeten less than sucrose, which is why the formula combines several sweeteners.
The ingredients and what each does
The fruit brings the flavour, the colour and much of the water in the mix. The polyols and the sweetener replace sugar: they sweeten and keep the sorbet from hardening without loading it with sugars. 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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