There are many sorbet recipes on the web, I've tried a few, and combined a few. This is the result: a simple recipe that keeps all the flavour of the berries, and produces an initially soft sorbet that freezes solid after it has been in the freezer for a couple of hours.
Ingredients (makes 1 litre sorbet)
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 cup water
- 4 cups fresh berries - blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, etc.
- 1 lemon
- 1 egg white (optional)
Instructions for Berry Sorbet
Combine sugar, water, and zest of the lemon in saucepan. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer until all sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool.
Strain lemon zest out of sugar water. Cool sugar water completely by putting it in the fridge overnight.
Puree berries and the juice of the lemon. Add cold sugar water. Strain mixture to remove seeds from puree.
Start ice cream maker and pour mixture into it.
After about 15 minutes whisk egg white until foamy and add to the sorbet in the ice cream maker. This is optional - if you do not want raw egg in the sorbet, you do not need to add the egg white, but it will make scooping the sorbet easier when it is frozen.
The ice cream maker will likely not stop by itself, because the sorbet does not become really solid inside the ice cream maker. Take the sorbet out of the ice cream maker and transfer to a container for freezing after about 1/2 hour of churning. Leaving it in the ice cream maker longer (I've left it up to an hour) will not harm the sorbet, but it likely won't make it solid either.
After the sorbet has been in the freezer for at least an hour, spoon the sorbet into bowls and enjoy!