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Milk Sherbet
4 cups milk 1 1/2 cups sugar Juice 3 lemons Mix juice and sugar, stirring constantly while slowly adding milk; if added too rapidly mixture will have a curdled appearance, which is unsightly, but will not affect the quality of sherbet; freeze and serve.
A three-ingredient frozen dessert from the era of the hand-cranked ice cream freezer. The whole technique is in the order and speed of mixing.
- The hinge: pour slowlyLemon juice at this concentration will curdle milk on contact. Combine the juice with the sugar first, then add the milk in a thin stream while stirring without pause. As the original says, curdling does not hurt the flavor, but it does leave a grainy look.
- Cold ingredients helpChill the milk thoroughly before mixing. Cold milk is slower to break, and a cold mixture also spends less time in the freezer, which means smaller ice crystals.
- Juice of 3 lemonsFigure about 1/3 to 1/2 cup, depending on the fruit. Lemon size varies a good deal, so measure rather than count if you want consistency.
- Milk, not creamWhole milk is the likely intention here. Skim or low-fat milk will freeze harder and taste thinner; the butterfat in whole milk contributes much of the texture.
- Sugar is structuralThe 1 1/2 cups is not only for sweetness. Sugar lowers the freezing point and keeps the sherbet scoopable, so cutting it substantially will give you a solid block.
- "Freeze" meant a churnThe original assumes a crank freezer packed with ice and rock salt, which churns while it chills. In an ice cream machine, run about 20-25 minutes. Without a machine, freeze in a shallow pan and beat or process the mixture two or three times as it sets, at roughly 40-minute intervals.
- Yield and servingAbout 1 1/2 quarts, or six to eight servings. Let it stand a few minutes out of the freezer before scooping, and serve it soon after; a lean sherbet like this coarsens noticeably by the second day.