Time for home-made baked plum sorbet – a perfect summer refresher.
I first published this recipe back around two years ago after a friendly neighbour gave me a bag of plums and I was looking at a delicious dessert idea. This year however, with a prolific tree of my own and a mighty crop, my self imposed ‘plum challenge’ has seen it come to the surface again.
Sorbet, as you no doubt know, is a dessert traditionally made from sweetened water and fruit puree. Unlike ice cream, this dessert is, at times, tart, and has no dairy products. It’s a great fat-free dessert option.
Unlike a granita, which has shaved, crushed or recognisable chunky pieces of ice, sorbet is super-smooth and the flavour is very intense. The secret is pureeing the mixture while in a semi-frozen state. This stops it forming a giant ice-cube!
There are different methods when it comes to preparing the fruit, however I found baking the plums (a great tip from famous foodie Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall) certainly brings out a very intense colour and flavour. More sugar can be added, depending on the sweetness of the fresh fruit used. If you have particularly sour plums you may wish to add more sugar to compensate.
Baked Plum Sorbet
Ingredients
- 1 kg of fresh plums
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla paste
- 1 cup water
Method
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
- Wash the plums and cut them in half, removing the stone if you can. This isn’t essential but helps not to have the stone later in the process!
- In a baking dish lined with baking paper, toss plums in the sugar, vanilla paste and water, then bake for 30 minutes or so, until the aroma wafts are too hard to resist to open the oven door. The plums will be rich in colour, juicy and ready for straining when cool enough to handle.
- Using a sieve, push through the flesh of the baked plums into a large bowl using the back of a spoon. Discard any stray stones and skin. The puree will be a delightful purple. Mix well with a spoon, so that the puree and the juice combine nicely, then put in an airtight container in the freezer.
- Every few hours, scoop out the contents and put in a food processor or blender, then return to the freezer. This will ensure that the sorbet will remain smooth and not crystalise into an ice block. Repeat 2 or 3 times before it’s frozen completely.
- Serve with a sprig of mint or lemon verbena.
Thanks for checking out my plum ideas. If you’ve missed them I’ve frozen plums for a later date; whipped up a delicious breakfast Plum Smoothie; baked Gluten Free Plum Friands; bottled some delicious Mulled Plum Syrup; preserved litres of Spiced Plum Sauce; and made a batch of Plum Liqueur.
I am in no particular hurry to stop preserving plums as I still have plenty more on the tree. Check out the #plum tag below if you are after more inspiration as I’ll be adding to it over the next few weeks.
