Cold and Ice

[kerravonsen]

Really rather odd weather today; it was quite cold this morning, but then the sun came out and the sky was beautiful with puffy and streaky clouds in it, but the wind was still rather chilly, and now it's downright cold again. Which perhaps means I was rather foolish to do another sorbet experiment, since it made my teeth ache with cold, but there it is, I did it.

Experiment #14: pear + licorice tea sorbet, with erythritol + stevia syrup
Recipe: 1 pear, chopped; 2 tbsp erthritol; 100ml water - in microwave 2 mins. 500ml boiling water, 4 licorice-tea teabags - steep for 5 mins. Remove tea bags. Pour the pear and its liquid into tea. Pour off liquid, puree the pear. Gradually add liquid back, to ensure that the pear is pulverized properly. Add 6 tbsp erythritol. Add 3 tsp stevia syrup (that is, the syrup made by steeping powdered Stevia leaves). Cool in freezer.
I then added some blue food colouring, because it didn't seem right that a strong-flavoured thing like licorice should have such a bland colour. Of course the downside is that blue food colouring always gets all over your fingers and everything else.
Result: very close to success! Yay! I stopped the machine after 40 minutes when it looked like it wasn't going to stop itself. Texture-wise, it was a very sorbet. Of course a sorbet isn't going to be actually creamy like ice cream, but this time it managed to be in the half-way state between too icy and too slushy. Taste-wise, it felt a bit too menthol-y; not too bad, but I should probably cut down on the erythritol a bit. (Note to self: need to buy more erythritol).
Lessons: (a) stewed fruit is good; probably the combination of fibre and natural pectin. (b) possibly try stewing the fruit without erythritol, or add less to the tea mixture, say one or two tbsp less. (c) a proper digital kitchen timer is good; I set it to go off at regular intervals so I would check the machine and not forget it. (d) don't use blue food colouring.

Comments

[watervole.livejournal.com]

You're so imaginative when it comes to flavours. I'd never have thought of pear and licorice, yet in my mind they would taste well together.

[kerravonsen]

Normally I'm more conservative than that, but I was first mentally going through the flavours I'd already tried, and while I think lemon might have worked also, I thought I'd give licorice another go.

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

Wow, definitely a lab! :-)