I had decided that if the weather stayed hot, I would make some sort of cold treat for everyone at work. Not everyone I work with is lucky enough to be able to have lots of windows open to have a nice (if sometimes warm) cross breeze. My first thought was popsicles, but I didn’t have any molds or popsicle sticks. So I decided to make Fresh Strawberry Sorbet and put it in little individual cups so that everyone could have a little something in the afternoon.
I made a simple syrup from 1 cup each water and sugar, put it in the fridge to cool, and got started chopping up strawberries. I was more and more disappointed as I sampled them, though – my strawberries had no flavor! They looked pretty enough, but they were very bland. I blended the 4 cups strawberries with the syrup and the 3 tablespoons lime juice, and tasted the puree. It was sweet but otherwise relatively bland. I thought about what could pep up strawberries, and decided it needed some more citrus. I didn’t want to go overboard on the lime, so I seeded one tangerine and put the pulp in the mixture. This didn’t do enough, and I was tired of working on the mixture, so I juiced the other tangerine and added a little more lime juice. This did the trick – the strawberry mixture tasted more flavorful – a bit like virgin strawberry daiquiris.
I put the mixture in my ice cream maker, and once it was done, I scooped it into 15 little cups and stuck them in the freezer to take to work the next day. It was pretty popular. I let everyone know about it at noon, and by 3pm there were only 3 little cups left. There were no leftovers.
I was disappointed that I had to adapt this recipe, but the problem was my strawberries, not the recipe itself. I think that the lime juice in the recipe lends a nice balance to the sweetness of the strawberries and the syrup. I won’t make it again, but it’s possible that if I want strawberry sorbet in the future, I’ll just make virgin daiquiris and process that in the ice cream maker.
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