No dairy at all
Raspberry and lime sorbet
Fruit, sugar, water and lime. Sorbet is the most honest thing you can make: with only four ingredients, the balance of sugar to fruit is the entire recipe.
- Makes about 800 ml
- 20 min hands-on
- Chill 2 hrs
- Churn 20–25 min
- Dairy-free
Ingredients
- 600 gabout 5 cups raspberries, fresh or frozen
- 180 gscant 1 cup caster sugar
- 150 ml⅔ cup water
- Juice of 2 limes (about 60 ml) and the zest of 1
- A pinch of fine salt
- 1 tbsp vodka (optional, for a softer scoop)
Method
Do not be tempted to cut the sugar. In sorbet, sugar is the only thing keeping the texture soft.
- Heat the sugar and water together until the sugar has completely dissolved, then take it off the heat and leave to cool. This is your syrup.
- Blitz the raspberries with the cooled syrup, the lime juice and zest, and the salt.
- Push the purée through a fine sieve, pressing hard, to remove the seeds. Be thorough: seeds are the difference between smooth and gritty.
- Stir in the vodka, if using, and chill for at least 2 hours.
- Churn for 20–25 minutes. Sorbet churns faster than ice cream and is ready when it looks like thick slush.
- Freeze for at least 3 hours before serving.
Worth knowing
- Sorbet lives or dies by sugar. Around a quarter of the mixture by weight is right; less and it sets like an ice cube, more and it never firms up.
- Frozen raspberries are perfect for this and much cheaper. There is no need to defrost them first.
- Taste before churning, at room temperature. Cold mutes sweetness, so it should taste slightly too sweet and slightly too sharp.
- No machine? Sorbet takes well to the freeze-and-beat method: it needs a little more attention but no special kit.
Make it yours
Five ways to change it
Raspberry and rose
Add 1 tsp rosewater at the end. Restraint is essential.
Strawberry and basil
Swap the fruit and blitz a handful of basil leaves in with it.
Mango and lime
Use 700 g mango flesh, drop the sugar to 140 g, and keep the lime.
Blackcurrant
Very sharp: raise the sugar to 220 g and cook the fruit first.
Peach and prosecco
Replace the water with prosecco, added after the syrup has cooled.
If it goes wrong
Rescue remedies
It froze rock solid
Not enough sugar for the amount of fruit, or the fruit was very watery. Add a tablespoon of vodka or two of syrup next time.
It never froze properly
Too much sugar or too much alcohol. Sorbet has a narrow window and it is easy to overshoot.
It is gritty
Seeds. Push the purée through the sieve more firmly, or sieve twice.
Can I make it less sweet?
Add more lime rather than less sugar: acidity makes it read as sharper without wrecking the texture.