Lemon Sorbet in a Lemon Recipe
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Recipe Overview
Preparation time: 10 minutes plus 30 minutes steeping and overnight freezing
Cooking time: 5 minutes
Makes: 4 lemons
Ingredients Needed
- 1.5 cups/375ml/13flozs water
- 1 cup/220g/7.8 caster or superfine sugar
- Strips of zest from 2 lemons
- 50g/1.7ozs glucose syrup or corn syrup
- 235ml/8.3flozs lemon juice (save lemon halves to serve the sorbet in)
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest
- 1 tablespoon Limoncello or 1 egg white (optional, see note)
Step-By-Step Instructions
Step 1 a - Place the water and the sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer for 4-5 minutes stirring to dissolve the sugar. The syrup should be clear. Turn off the heat and place the strips of zest in the syrup and let steep for 30 minutes. Stir in the glucose syrup, lemon juice and lemon zest. Cool completely and stir in limoncello or egg white mixing well and place in a container to freeze overnight or for 6-8 hours.
Step 1b Ice Cream Maker - If using an ice cream maker, follow manufacturer's directions to churn the sorbet and then freeze. You won't need to do step 2, go to step 3.
Step 2 - The next day sit the container on the bench for 10 minutes. Break up the lemon ice with a dinner knife or fork and place in a blender or Thermomix. Blend until smooth. Thermomix: 30 seconds, speed #9. Place the container in the freezer until needed.
Step 3 - When you want to serve the lemon sorbet, place the container in the fridge for 20 minutes. The texture of the sorbet will then be scoopable.
Step 4 - To fill the lemons, take one lemon and cut across 2/3 down so that you have a deeper cup and then a lid. Using a citrus reamer carefully remove pulp and juice making sure not to break the skin on the base and the lid. If you need this to sit flat, just slice a little off the bottom of the base making sure not to cut into the lemon flesh. Scoop sorbet into the lemon halves and freeze. When ready to serve place lemon lid on top along with lemon leaves or a mint leaf.
Substitution notes and ingredients:
Lemons can be subbed for limes or grapefruit.
Glucose syrup helps to inhibit ice crystals. You can also use corn syrup instead.
You can replace the limoncello with vodka or use 1 egg white. This is especially useful for a smooth, creamy texture without the use of an ice cream maker. Sorbets made using an ice cream maker don't need this.
Personal Note
It's definitely getting to be ice cream or sorbet weather now that things are finally warming up. On the day that I made this I had a really busy day filming and writing and I had said yes to too many things and that meant that I was stretched thin. I didn't have enough time to even have a drink so I made myself a matcha latte to help my flagging energy levels even though it was 5pm and late for a caffeinated drink.
Then I reached over to switch the camera off and accidentally bumped my matcha latte.
Whoosh! Green latte all over my dress and the kitchen island. Just brilliant.
Gathering the last of my patience and will I cleaned it up and then Mr NQN and I took the dogs for a walk. It was dinner time by the time we got back and it was then that I received a text. An ice cream media send out was just delivered. I went to the front door and looked down. There was nothing there. I looked closer at the text and it said that it was delivered to number 6 of our street, not our house number.
I wondered whether I should just leave the ice cream there but then I thought about the carbon footprint of an additional delivery so I decided to go and pick it up.
"I just want dinner and a lie down," I said to Mr NQN while pulling on my coat.
I reached the house and their door was wide open. I called out and a man popped his head around the corner.
"Hi! Did you just get a delivery of ice cream?" I asked.
"Haha yeah I did!" the man answered.
"Did you eat it?" I asked laughing.
It turned out that he hadn't eaten it and he put it all back together for me which was nice of him. The ice cream was way too melted to eat it but I was happy just with this lemon sorbet!
So tell me Dear Reader, do you have an ice cream maker? What is your favourite flavour of sorbet? And would you have gone to collect the ice cream and if it were delivered to you, would you have eaten it?