Monday 18 February 2013

Pear Sorbet


It's been a while since my last post with all my relatives from overseas coming over! However, I did use this opportunity to make all the foods I had been craving (yet restraining myself from baking) over the past few weeks - it's hard to restrain yourself from homemade goodies when you're living in a house of only two!

I only have time to post this healthy yet delicious pear sorbet recipe - but will try my best to upload the others as soon as possible! When making pear sorbet, be sure to choose unripe and unbruised pears when buying them, and allow them to ripen out of the fridge (usually takes 2-3 days). The riper the pears, the sweeter your sorbet will be and the less sugar you will need to add - it is truly a refreshing dessert to cool off in the summer!

I put a creative spin on my dessert by shaping the sorbet into a pear when serving it to my relatives. I also saved the stalks of each pear to garnish the top of each moulded sorbets - one of my relatives actually thought I was serving her a full-fledged pear! Although it may seem a tad odd, serving the sorbet with another ice cream I made (coconut) was actually a good accompaniment since the coconut was more on the sweet and rich/heavier side, whereas the sorbet was somehow more of a refreshing pellet cleanser.




Pear Sorbet
Recipe: Adapted from yummymummykitchen

1kg worth of pears (approx. 4-5 pears - I used Bartlett pears)
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
2t fresh lemon juice

Peel and de-core each pear and roughly cut them into 3cm pieces.
(Save the stalk if you are planning to present this in the shape of a pear.)

Place chopped pears into a saucepan with water and sugar and cook over medium heat, stirring until pears are cooked and tender to touch.

Pour pear mixture into a blender and puree until smooth. If you don't have one like me - forcing the mixture with a spoon through a large sieve also does the trick (albeit time consuming!)

Thoroughly chill the pear mixture in the fridge. Add lemon juice to the mixture before churning in an ice cream machine until soft set.

Freezing the sorbet for 3-4 minutes after using glad-wrap to shape it into a pear helps set the shape, and also makes it easier to to make further adjustments later.