Orange-Pineapple Sorbet
I love making ice cream and sorbets. I've had fascination with homemade ice cream since I was a kid, but my folks always made the whole process so painful, we never made it much. I got a gift certificate for cooking.com a couple years back, and I ended up getting a Cuisinart 1.5 qt ice cream maker. What a winner. It's one of the best tools in the kitchen. I love this thing. I make ice cream, sorbet, sherbet, ices, mixed drinks, ahhh, and I'm pretty sure some other stuff too, I just can't remember. Basically, I love this thing.
The other night I put together a base for a orange-pineapple sorbet. I hadn't made a sorbet in a while, so I kind of had to guess how to put it together while I was at the store buying ingredients. I came up with this basic recipe:
1.5 cups orange marmalade
1 cup sugar
1.5 cups pineapple juice
1.5 cups orange flavored seltzer water
All this went into a sauce pan, and I cooked it on medium heat until the sugar was dissolved. I had started with a half cup of sugar, figuring the marmalade was in a large enough quantity, but I didn't quite have the light syrup consistency I wanted. The extra half cup was a winner on the texture front.
The whole thing was cooled and left in the fridge overnight.
The next day I strained the mixture (I decided I wanted a smooth product, so I took the orange peel bits from the marmalade out), and froze. Once it was soft frozen, I tried it. IT WAS FUCKING HORRIBLE. It was so bitter. I gave my 2 year old a taste, and her face squished all up, and she looked around for somewhere to spit it out. Nothing was handy, so she drank the vileness down. Honest to god, it was like ear wax. Nasty.
I'm pretty sure the peel had a bunch of pith on it, and that is what made it so bitter. My mistake was not tasting the ingredients first. I am not a fan of jams, jellies or marmalade on toast or biscuits, though I will use them as ingredients in cooking (usually as a sugar substitute). That being the case, I didn't try the marmalade before it went into the mixture. Sure enough, it was pretty bitter. I don't know if orange marmalade is supposed to be bitter, but I can assure you, Safeway's Seville orange marmalade is.
I just did a quick check on good old Wikipedia, and UK style marmalade are sweet with a bitter tang, where as US style is just sweet. I think I'll get a more basic US style, and try that.
This recipe is a LOSER.
The other night I put together a base for a orange-pineapple sorbet. I hadn't made a sorbet in a while, so I kind of had to guess how to put it together while I was at the store buying ingredients. I came up with this basic recipe:
1.5 cups orange marmalade
1 cup sugar
1.5 cups pineapple juice
1.5 cups orange flavored seltzer water
All this went into a sauce pan, and I cooked it on medium heat until the sugar was dissolved. I had started with a half cup of sugar, figuring the marmalade was in a large enough quantity, but I didn't quite have the light syrup consistency I wanted. The extra half cup was a winner on the texture front.
The whole thing was cooled and left in the fridge overnight.
The next day I strained the mixture (I decided I wanted a smooth product, so I took the orange peel bits from the marmalade out), and froze. Once it was soft frozen, I tried it. IT WAS FUCKING HORRIBLE. It was so bitter. I gave my 2 year old a taste, and her face squished all up, and she looked around for somewhere to spit it out. Nothing was handy, so she drank the vileness down. Honest to god, it was like ear wax. Nasty.
I'm pretty sure the peel had a bunch of pith on it, and that is what made it so bitter. My mistake was not tasting the ingredients first. I am not a fan of jams, jellies or marmalade on toast or biscuits, though I will use them as ingredients in cooking (usually as a sugar substitute). That being the case, I didn't try the marmalade before it went into the mixture. Sure enough, it was pretty bitter. I don't know if orange marmalade is supposed to be bitter, but I can assure you, Safeway's Seville orange marmalade is.
I just did a quick check on good old Wikipedia, and UK style marmalade are sweet with a bitter tang, where as US style is just sweet. I think I'll get a more basic US style, and try that.
This recipe is a LOSER.