Orange Sherbet
2 tablespoons lemon juice 1 cup orange juice 1 1/2 cups water 3/4 cup sugar 1 egg 1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch Heat the water and sugar to boiling. Stir into it the cornstarch, stirred smooth with a little cold water. Beat the egg, stir it into the hot mixture after stirring a little of the hot mixture into it. Add the lemon juice and the orange juice, and freeze.
A starch-and-egg thickened water ice of the sort common before home freezers, meant for a hand-cranked churn. The thickener is the point: it keeps the ice smooth without cream.
- Cook the egg properlyThe recipe tempers the beaten egg into the hot starch mixture and stops there. Return the pan to low heat after adding the egg and stir until it reaches 160F, then strain and chill completely before churning; an off-heat mixture will not reliably get there.
- Chill before freezingThe base must be cold, ideally refrigerated several hours or overnight. Churning a warm base in a modern machine gives coarse ice crystals and a soupy result.
- Freezing methodIn an ice-cream freezer, churn 20-25 minutes until it holds a soft mound, then harden in the freezer for two hours. Without a machine, freeze in a shallow pan and break up the crystals with a fork every 30 minutes for about three hours.
- CornstarchOne and a half tablespoons in roughly two and a half cups of liquid gives a light body, not a pudding. Stir it smooth in cold water first, as directed, and let it boil briefly so it loses the raw starch taste.
- Orange juiceSqueezed juice, not concentrate, and add it after the base has cooled if you want the fresh flavor to survive. Heating citrus juice dulls it noticeably.
- Sugar and textureThree-quarters of a cup is on the lean side for a sorbet and the result will freeze hard. An extra two tablespoons, or a tablespoon of corn syrup, keeps it scoopable straight from a modern freezer.
- YieldAbout a pint and a half once churned, serving four to six as a small course.