Pastry Chef Online: How to Think Like a Pastry Chef
How to Think Like a Pastry Chef
Sorbets and Granitas
Sorbets and Granitas
Sorbets and granitas are basically sweetened, frozen water. Sorbets are frozen while being churned. This makes for very fine ice crystals, and sorbets are generally very smooth and almost creamy in the mouth. A granita is frozen still and scraped every so often with a fork. This encourages large ice crystals to form and leaves you with a very icy, granular end product which can be very refreshing.
The sugar in your sorbet/granita solution helps to regulate the size of the ice crystals and also how firmly it freezes. Too little sugar, and you've got a frozen brick. Too much, and it won't freeze at all.
Here is a neat little trick for testing your liquid for sorbets. Wash a fresh egg very well. Dry it. Float it in your liquid. Some of the egg should float above the liquid. You want this area to be about the size of a dime to a nickel. If too much is sticking out, add some water to dilute the solution. If too little is sticking out, you need more sugar. Add some simple syrup or some corn syrup. Once your liquid has passed the egg test, it's ready to chill, then either be churned into sorbet or frozen and scraped into granita. And there you have it.
Here's some pomegranate sorbet. And here's some pomegranate granita.
Here's a very basic outline of how to make sorbet/granita:
Flavorful juice/fruit puree/wine, etc
1:1 simple syrup (steep whatever you want in it)
a little corn syrup or a wee splash of alcohol (this helps to further inhibit serious crystallization)
salt to taste
water
lemon juice or lime juice (to balance sweetness)
Heat your juice to dissolve the salt. Add some simple syrup and some lemon/lime juice. Taste to see if you like it. It should be a little sweeter than you want it, because freezing will dull some of the sweetness. Float your clean egg in it. Add some water or some more simple syrup until your sugar density lets the egg float with a dime-nickel size above the liquid. Add a splash of alcohol. Put in a shallow pan in the freezer for granita or chill then spin in your ice cream maker for sorbet.
Homemade sorbet should be eaten fairly quickly since it isn't stabilized with commercial stabilizers and it will start to separate.
Sorbets and granitas are basically sweetened, frozen water. Sorbets are frozen while being churned. This makes for very fine ice crystals, and sorbets are generally very smooth and almost creamy in the mouth. A granita is frozen still and scraped every so often with a fork. This encourages large ice crystals to form and leaves you with a very icy, granular end product which can be very refreshing.
The sugar in your sorbet/granita solution helps to regulate the size of the ice crystals and also how firmly it freezes. Too little sugar, and you've got a frozen brick. Too much, and it won't freeze at all.
Here is a neat little trick for testing your liquid for sorbets. Wash a fresh egg very well. Dry it. Float it in your liquid. Some of the egg should float above the liquid. You want this area to be about the size of a dime to a nickel. If too much is sticking out, add some water to dilute the solution. If too little is sticking out, you need more sugar. Add some simple syrup or some corn syrup. Once your liquid has passed the egg test, it's ready to chill, then either be churned into sorbet or frozen and scraped into granita. And there you have it.
Here's some pomegranate sorbet. And here's some pomegranate granita.
Here's a very basic outline of how to make sorbet/granita:
Flavorful juice/fruit puree/wine, etc
1:1 simple syrup (steep whatever you want in it)
a little corn syrup or a wee splash of alcohol (this helps to further inhibit serious crystallization)
salt to taste
water
lemon juice or lime juice (to balance sweetness)
Heat your juice to dissolve the salt. Add some simple syrup and some lemon/lime juice. Taste to see if you like it. It should be a little sweeter than you want it, because freezing will dull some of the sweetness. Float your clean egg in it. Add some water or some more simple syrup until your sugar density lets the egg float with a dime-nickel size above the liquid. Add a splash of alcohol. Put in a shallow pan in the freezer for granita or chill then spin in your ice cream maker for sorbet.
Homemade sorbet should be eaten fairly quickly since it isn't stabilized with commercial stabilizers and it will start to separate.
