Berried Treasure -- Strawberry Sorbet with a Little Something Extra

Cook Sister! is an informative and well written food blog by a South African living in London. Cook Sister! is also hosting the monthly food blogging event "Waiter There's Something in My ..." This month's theme is berries, or as Cook Sister! puts it "berried treasure."

Since my husband has never driven by a farmstand he won't at least check out, I was overstocked with juicy, jammy sweet berries straight from their growers. They were wonderful by themselves, but there were so many I needed to do something to preserve them since we couldn't eat them all fresh.

I thought I would make a strawberry sorbet and include a blackberry swirl. Well it turns out you can lead a berry puree to an ice cream machine, but you can't make it swirl. I improvised a bit, found another way to put bits of berries into the dessert and turned the blackberry puree into a sauce and this patriotic-looking red, white and blue dessert packed with the taste of that sweet farmstand fruit was born just in time for July 4th.

Once the "Berried Treasure" round up appears, I'll include a link, but here's Cook Sister's invitation to come out and play. If you'd like to join in, you have until July 6.

Berried Treasure Sorbet
Approximately 8 Servings

The preserves can be left out if desired, but I think they add a bit of texture, pretty flecks of color and a nice jolt of flavor. They also seem to not freeze as rock hard as bits of fresh berries sometimes seem to. See below for directions for making the sorbet without an ice cream maker.

Sorbet
1 and 1/2 cups strawberry puree (about 2 pints of strawberries)
1 and 1/2 cups simple syrup (see note below)
juice of 1/2 lime
3 tablespoons or to taste, boysenberry, blackberry or blueberry preserves (the kind with bits of fruit -- I used Trader Joe's boysenberry)

Combine puree with syrup and lime juice. Refrigerate until cold. Put into ice cream maker and follow manufacturer's instructions. When the sorbet is almost soft set, with the blade or container continuing to move, add preserves by tablespoon. When preserves are well distributed and sorbet is finished, pack into a freezer-safe container and freeze for an hour or two to harden before serving.

Blackberry Sauce
1/2 cup of blackberry puree or juice without seeds. (About 1 pint of blackberries put through a food mill OR pureed and then pushed through a sieve.)
1/2 cup simple syrup

Combine puree or juice with syrup in a sauce pan. Cook over medium heat stirring occasional until the mixture has cooked done to half its volume. You'll have about a 1/2 cup of sauce. Cool.

To serve, drizzle sauce over sorbet. Top with a jot of whipped cream and a fresh berry. Any leftover sauce can be used with abandon over pancakes, etc.

A Note About Not-So-Simple Syrup
Simple syrup is nothing more than sugar cooked into water until is "melts" into a liquid. Whenever you are cooking sugar, be careful of burning (both of you and the sugar in the pot). The traditional ratio is 1:1 sugar to water. This will result in a smoother, less icy sorbet with a bit more sweetness. At our house, my usual ratio is more like 1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar to 1 cup water, but we like our sorbets on the tarter, grainier and icier side. Taste your berries and let them be your guide to how sweet you need your simple syrup to be. Remember that when the sorbet mix is frozen it will taste less sweet than it does before it is frozen and adjust accordingly. (I used the 1:1 ratio for the sorbet shown above.)

Adaption for Those Without Ice Cream Makers
Once the strawberry puree-simple sugar mix is cold, pour it into a metal pan or other freezer safe container that is wide and flat. Stir in the preserves, making sure the the bits are well distributed. Place in the freezer and stir and scrape the mixture every half hour or so until frozen. Remove from the freezer about 20 minutes or so before serving and scrape with a fork to break up and serve. The result will be grainier but just as tasty.
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Info for weight watchers. Figuring eight servings and allowing for each serving to have 1/8 of the blackberry sauce (which would be a lot), a single serving would be equal to about 3 points (using 1-1/2 cups of sugar and 1-1/2 cups of water for the simple syrup used in the sorbet and syrup recipes).
Want to see some of my other sorbet recipes (tangerine, lychee and hibiscus tea), click here?