Simple sorbet: Luna chef’s frozen fruit dessert both flavorful, refreshing

Dense, smooth, refreshing and full of flavor, sorbet tricks you into thinking it’s difficult to make.

The secret is its simplicity.

“It’s pretty easy,” said Taylor Siok, pastry chef at Luna on Spokane’s South Hill.

The restaurant got a new gelato-making machine earlier this summer, and Siok has been experimenting with gelato and sorbet recipes ever since. Here, he shares a strawberry-raspberry sorbet recipe that he’s adapted for home cooks.

For those interested in making their own frozen desserts, sorbet is a good place to start. There’s no need to fuss over the egg, cream and milk mixture that serves as the base for ice cream or gelato. While that process can be tricky and nerve-wracking, sorbet’s ingredients are few and simple: water, sugar, fruit puree. And the preparation involves little actual cooking.

“It’s refreshing, which is always nice on a hot day,” Siok said. “It’s seasonal, too. All the best berries are coming out during summer. You want to get them fresh. Experiment with any combination of berries you see fit.”

Typically offered as a dessert, sorbet can also be a palate cleanser, served between courses. Non-dairy and egg-free, it’s vegan-friendly. It’s also gluten-free.

The texture sets it apart from sherbet, sorbet’s creamier cousin that often includes egg whites or milk, cream or buttermilk, or granita, which is made up of larger ice crystals and has a crunchy texture.

Siok’s tip for getting sorbet super-smooth and ultra-dense: “Blend your fruit in the blender, keep blending and then keep blending 2 minutes longer than you think you need to on high speed.”

He also strains the puree through a conical chinois fine mesh sieve. Leaving in any lumps or seeds “is going to ruin the texture.”

Resist the urge to reduce the sugar. It doesn’t just sweeten sorbet. It inhibits freezing and gives the dessert its structure.

In ice cream, structure comes from the sugar as well as fat and protein in the eggs, cream and milk. Sorbet relies on sugar to make it scoopable.

Siok, 23, uses a refractometer to measure by weight the concentration of sugar in water. For sorbet, a concentration of 20 to 30 percent is generally considered ideal. Add too much, the sorbet might not freeze. Add too little, and it might be too icy and hard to scoop.

“Sugar is the liquifier,” Siok said. “If you have too much water in your recipe, you’re going to end up with an ice cube.”

Don’t have a refractometer? A general rule is 4 cups puree to 1 1/2 cups simple syrup, adjusting the mixture as needed for sweetness, thickness and flavor.

“It’s all a matter of balance,” Siok said.

Use fresh lemon or lime juice, salt, fruit juice, even a few tablespoons of riesling, red wine or a favorite liqueur to balance flavors or thin the puree. And be sure to puree the best fruit you can find.

“If you have huckleberries, go for it,” Siok said. “It’ll be the most expensive sorbet anybody’s ever made, but it will be good.”

Fruits high in fiber, such as avocados, pears and mangoes, and fruits high in pectin – peaches, apricots, guavas and berries – act as thickeners, lending creaminess to the texture.

Tart citrus fruits are trickier; they need more sugar for balance and their juice is thin. For a citrus sorbet – lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit – consider corn syrup, which isn’t as sweet as sugar but is much more viscous than simple syrup and can help achieve a creamier texture.

Siok has already adjusted his strawberry-raspberry sorbet, balancing the recipe for home cooks and noncommerical ice cream makers. Because of the natural acidity in the berries, he doesn’t add citrus. It’s “very close” to what Luna served this summer.

Siok’s house-made sorbet and Italian-style ice cream debuted on Luna’s summer menu in late June.

“The main difference is the speed at which it spins,” he said. “Ours is going to be creamier and ours is going to freeze a little harder.”

At the center of Luna’s frozen dessert-making is its new Carpigiani LB 100, which holds a gallon of liquid ingredients. That puts it on the small end for a commercial machine. Still, it weighs more than 200 pounds. And it can spin and solidify gelato and sorbet much faster than the average home ice cream machine.

“It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time,” Siok said. “I think making your own ice cream or gelato or sorbet is such a crucial part of a dessert program.”

He recommends chilling the simple syrup as well as the fruit puree before spinning the mixture in an ice cream maker. He also recommends pouring the churned mixture into a container that’s already cold to help prevent ice crystals.

Spin the mixture according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

“It’ll be melty,” Siok said. But, “it should hold its shape.”

And, after it sets in the freezer, “it should make people happy.”

Strawberry- Raspberry Sorbet

From Taylor Siok of Luna in Spokane

3 cups raspberry puree

1 cup strawberry puree

1 1/2 cups simple syrup, chilled (See recipe below)

Puree raspberries and strawberries in the bowl of a food processor until smooth. You want to end up with a quart of puree in all.

Add the simple syrup, push the mixture through a fine mesh sieve and place it in the refrigerator until the mixture reaches 40 degrees or below, 2 to 3 hours.

Process mixture in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions, 20 to 25 minutes. Place in freezer for 3 hours or overnight before serving.

Yield: about 5 cups

Simple syrup

1 1/2 cups water

1 1/2 cups sugar

In a medium saucepan combine water and sugar. Bring to a boil, stirring, until sugar has dissolved. But don’t keep boiling because the water will begin to evaporate. Allow to cool.