Wild Blueberry Sorbet

 

Wild blueberries?

Really and for true?

Yep.  Just ask this little guy:

I found him crawling on a blueberry

when I was picking out stems and bits of leaves.

He didn't want to stay and chat, though...

He seemed in a big hurry to get somewhere.

So he kept crawling around and around the rim of this little quarter cup capacity plastic container.

Until I felt sorry for him

And helped him find a new home outside.

Okay, back to the blueberries.  Once I'd removed all the twigs, leaves, mushed berries and single worm, I came to the realization that I didn't have enough berries for the size batch of sorbet I wanted to make, and so yes, I added a package of Wyman's frozen wild blueberries to make up the difference.  I reserved one cup of the berries I'd picked to stir into the sorbet after it churned. 

And I used the remaining 2 cups of my berries plus 3 cups of the Wyman's. 

I let the frozen berries thaw while I made my simple syrup.

For the simple syrup, I just combined 2 cups of sugar and 2 cups of water in a pot, and heated them until the sugar disolved.

Next, I pureed the 5 cups of blueberries

and started to pour them through a strainer to remove the seeds and skins.  

Except, they didn't strain all that well.  I switched to a larger-meshed strainer and poured the simple syrup through with the puree, and that helped.  A few tiny seeds made it into the sorbet, but they weren't really noticeable in the final product.

 

Anyway, once all the puree was strained and the simple syrup was completely mixed in, I put that into the fridge to chill a while.

Now, the next day, when I finished making this, was rather hot and humid.  I'd also baked four loaves of bread that morning, so the kitchen was extra warm.  And so, in hindsight, my next move wasn't very bright. 

I poured the sorbet base into my ice cream maker, which was on the counter in my hot kitchen, and pressed the "on" button.  Well, it churned well enough, but at some point, the heat of the kitchen warmed up the ice cream maker so much that my sorbet just wasn't getting chilled any more.  Next time, I'd do the churning in the basement.

So I mixed in my remaining cup of blueberries

and then I scraped everything out into two quart containers and put them in the freezer.  (I didn't have two quarts of sorbet - more like a quart and a pint, by the way.) When I scraped the sorbet from the bowl of the ice cream maker, I noticed that there was some texture to the sorbet.  I figured I'd just check on it now and then and give it a stir to keep it from freezing into two big purple ice cubes.

And guess what?

It came out just fine.

 

Printable Recipe!

Comments

[[eatingclub] vancouver]

The colour of the finished sorbet is just gorgeous! Wild blueberries are the best.

[Erin]

This looks wonderful! I love sorbet and this looks like the perfect way to have it!

[coco]

love the pics. the sorbet looks so tempting!

[Tom Aarons]

I came to look at your exquisite sorbet. And then I saw the worm. The world's most beautiful worm... It took on the blueberry color so well. And you've photographed it so perfectly. Thank you for adding something special to my day!