This is a bank holiday weekend here in the UK, which for a lot of people means a long weekend with Friday and Monday off and for some of the school children, Thursday – Tuesday off! Lucky them! Teachers get in-service days instead.
Saturday was mum’s birthday. I’m forbidden to say how old she was so I will just say she is doing great for her age and really should enter some kind of fountain of youth contest or something because she would win, hands down. Because of some personal concerns I am unable to concentrate not even on the garden and I’m worried that I’m going to miss something or not get everything done that I want to get done before it gets much later in the year. I would like to be sitting out enjoying the garden at some stage this summer instead of doing a lot of manual labour so that means getting things done asap and I’m just not able at the moment.
Sunday, I sat on the grass and half heartedly dug up some creeping buttercups that are very well established in my “lawn” whilst thinking that I really should be doing something more productive, but honestly I just didn’t have it in me to do anything else.
In the evening, I made some sorbet – since the stuff I made yesterday was so successful! – and sometimes I resort to cooking when I’m feeling stressed or a bit low. I have realised though that the ice cream bowl needs to be in the freeze for at least two days – 24 hours is not enough. I ended up giving up and leaving the liquid sorbet until Monday as it just wouldn’t freeze. Mum was over on Monday and said it was good anyway but *I* know that it’s not how it should be.
So on Tuesday, I tried again with the peach melba sorbet and it froze in 20 minutes! The coconut lime and the chocolate that I made on Sunday/Monday and stuck in the freezer whilst a bit soft, are actually OK now after being in the freezer but I know now if I want the sorbet to be “instant” then the bowl needs 48 hours in the freezer first.
I will post up the recipes for the sorbets as I was quite pleased with how they turned out and none of them have any dairy products in them. Some of my old sorbet recipes still used egg white and if you don’t know the reason why something’s included in a recipe then it’s tough to exclude it. I checked in my ice cream book and there did seem to be a valid reason but in the end I tried it without egg white and I can’t tell any difference!
Sorbets made:
Pineapple
Coconut and Lime
Chocolate
Peach Melba
I am planning to experiment with some soy yogurts and custards and see what kind of results I get – hopefully something like ice cream!
It’s the sunny warm weather we have been having this weekend that’s made me think of sorbet.
