why does my sorbet turn out crumbly? Do I turn it too long or is my fruit ratio off?

B

barbara-in-va

Well-known member
I am good at making crumbly sorbet, tasty but crumbly. The other day a coworker brought in some wonderful strawberry mint sorbet that her boys made, it was so good. The recipe is 2C fruit pureed, 2 c buttermilk, 1 C sugar. They added a bit of mint. Hers was perfect and teenage boys made it, how hard can that be? Well, I had some frozen blackberry puree so I used a scant 2C and mine turned crumbly smileys/frown.gif

Any thoughts please?

 
I'm going right to the source: Jeni Britton Bauer on how to tell when sorbet is done

from her book "Jeni's splendid ice creams at home"

How to tell when to stop processing in ice cream machine:
"Sorbets are done when they achieve the consistency of a thick smoothie. They should be frozen enough to be just barely pourable. If you fully freeze sorbets, too much air will be whipped in and they will become fluffy and crumbly."

Your sugar ratio sounds good: for water-soluble flavors it should be at least 1 part sugar to 3 parts fruit. But then you added more liquid with the buttermilk, so I'm not sure there. She likes to concentrate the fruit flavors, either by roasting (strawberries) or heating the fruit with the sugar. But just warm rather than cook the fruit or it will taste jammy.

For non-machine sherbets, Alice Medrich recommends breaking the frozen base into chunks and whirling it with a food processor until smooth.

For some recipes, Jeni uses a blend of light corn syrup + sugar...I'm guessing so the fruit doesn't have to be heated too long to dissolve.

 
This is good to know. I still haven't bought an ice cream maker yet, but

am planning on doing it soon. Sounds so good with buttermilk! Strawberry-mint, yumm!

 
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