Chocolate-Caramel Sorbet

For the first time this year I had a complete and total creative block. I opened a blank Word doc yesterday and just stared at it, waiting for a sparkling blog post to magically appear – which unfortunately did not. I should have guessed it was going to be a bad day when I had eaten all of my emergency homemade chocolate chip granola bars I keep in my desk before 10am.

You know how I pulled myself out of it? I ate a huge helping of Chocolate-Caramel Sorbet. Ice cream really doesn’t do it for me unless it’s covered in thick hot fudge, studded with chocolate stars, layered with brownie bits and smothered in whipped cream. But I adore sorbet. I love the crunchy, icy texture and think it’s much more sophisticated than ice cream. If I sit down to a great big bowl of sorbet in front of the TV at 2am, I can kid myself I’m actually being very grown-up and cultured instead of being a child shoving ice cream in her mouth whilst watching cartoons after bedtime.

If you ever find yourself stuck in a creative black hole you just don’t know how to get out of – make this sorbet! I guarantee you’ll be right back on track in no time. Or you’ll have a smile on your face to say the least.

Chocolate-Caramel Sorbet

Ingredients

1 ½ cup coconut milk

¼ cup cocoa powder

½ cup honey/maple syrup/golden syrup

½ cup chilled caramel sauce

Recipe

1. In a saucepan, bring the coconut milk, cocoa powder and syrup to a simmer over a medium heat, whisking constantly.

2. Remove from the heat after 5 minutes and place in a container suitable for freezing. Leave to cool to room temperature before placing in the freezer.

3. Remove the sorbet from the freezer after 2 hours – it won’t be fully set yet – and stir. With your fingers, pinch small amounts (about ¼ teaspoon) of the chilled caramel sauce and drop randomly into the nearly-set sorbet until you’ve used all caramel.

4. Stir the sorbet and put it back in the freezer for another 2 hours to fully set. Remove from the freezer 5 minutes before serving. 



Here are the link parties I take part in.
Come and join the fun!

Strawberry Sorbet

I've always loved ice cream, sorbets and gelato, but never tried making them at home because I didn't have an ice cream maker. Now that I've discovered I can make all of these things without one, I'm addicted!

I know some of the measurements - ml for strawberries - may seem a bit odd, but I was using cups to measure everything, which include both a cup measurement and a ml measurement. I found this much easier than weighing all the dry ingredients.

Ingredients

100ml water

75ml sugar

100ml milk

100ml frozen strawberries

2 tbsp sugar

100ml water

Recipe

1. Combine 100ml of water with 75ml of sugar in a pan on a low heat. Continue to stir until all the sugar has dissolved. Leave to cool

2. Meanwhile, mix together 100ml of strawberries (I used frozen), 2 tbsp and 100ml of water in another pan over a medium heat. Continue to mix and bash the strawberries until a gloopy paste is formed. 

3. When the strawberry puree mix is complete, leave to cool before straining. 

4. Add 100ml of milk to the sugar/water mix, then stir in the strwberry puree.

5. Place in the freezer and leave for around two hours. After this time, remove from the freezer, stir, and replace.

6. Take the sorbet out of the freezer to mix two more times - each an hour apart to ensure a silky texture.