Well here I am with a freezer full of blueberries and a new ice-cream cookbook Tory gave me for my birthday. It only makes sense that I tried an ice-cream? Or rather a sherbet. The cool thing about Hello, My Name Is Ice Cream (#CommissionsEarned) if you’re a food geek like me is that the author (also named Dana!) gives you several different styles of ice cream (custard, Philadelphia, sherbet, etc.) and tells you which style she recommends for various ingredients. Fruits are recommended for sherbets because the fresh vibrant flavors can get lost and mellow out in rich custards. That said – one of these days I’m going to test that theory and make three ice-cream varieties at the same time with the same flavor profile. But for now let’s stick to the Blueberry Lemon Sherbet.
I was on an ice-cream kick and I knew the book would have a good base for me to start from. I really was intending to just use a basic blank slate sherbet until I read the huckleberry lemon sherbet recipe and saw she recommended subbing in blueberries. I was hooked and didn’t really change the recipe from there.
Remember when you make ice-cream, plan on it being a 3 day process. Day 1 to make the base. Day 2 to churn and harden. Day 3 to enjoy. You can speed this up and I’ll let you know where you can along the way, but I promise it’s worth the wait. This recipe also uses glucose and commercial ice-cream stabilizer. In the book, several other options are listed and I talk about a couple alternatives in my post about Toasted Marshmallow Ice Cream if you don’t want to use these products. I personally love the results I get and it feels like it’s made it foolproof for me as a home cook to get great texture in my ice cream.
Here’s what you need:
You’ll see malic acid in the picture, I didn’t end up using this because of the lemon juice and buttermilk.
We’re going to start by making a blueberry puree. You can do this up to a week in advance. This is a pure blueberry puree – no additional sugar added. And if you use wild blueberries, they don’t need it! If blueberries aren’t in season, I recommend using frozen.
Add a pound of berries to a saucepan and cook over medium heat. Stir and break up the berries as they cook. Once they start to bubble, reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 5 to 10 minutes until the berries have released their juices.
Transfer berries to a blender and cool for 10 to 15 minutes. Then blend on high speed until smooth.
Push the puree through a mesh strainer to remove and stray skin pieces. Blueberry seeds are so small you’ll still get some of those.
Transfer the puree to the fridge until you need it. There will probably be a little extra when we’re done with the ice cream. Save it as a sundae topping or use on pancakes, waffles, etc.
Now it’s time to start the sherbet base.
Mix together a teaspoon of commercial ice-cream stabilizer with sugar. In a sauce pan stir together sugar mixture, milk, cream, and glucose. Cook over medium-high heat, whisking occasionally until the dairy comes to a rolling boil. Reduce heat and simmer 2 minutes.
Remove from heat and stir in some lemon zest. Just let this hang out and infuse into the dairy for a half hour or so.
While the dairy cools. Whisk together some buttermilk, lemon juice, and a cup of your blueberry puree. Put back in the fridge.
Strain the dairy mixture through a fine mesh strainer to remove the lemon zest bits.
Now we cool the lemon infused base. Place the bowl in a larger bowl full of ice and water. Stir periodically until the mixture cools to 50 degrees or lower.
Remove the cooled base from the ice bath and stir in the blueberry and buttermilk mixture.
It’s really amusing to me that blueberries turn a lovely shade of deep purple when pureed. I know, I know the blueberry skins are blue – but it seems silly to have purple blueberry sherbet.
Transfer the sherbet base to the fridge to cure for at least 4 hours or overnight. If you do this first thing in the morning and chill for at least 4 hours, you can cut off one day in the 3 days ice cream making plan and churn later on the first day.
When you’re ready to churn your sherbet you are going to want to follow the instructions for whatever ice cream maker you have. I have an attachment for my kitchen aid mixer (#CommissionsEarned) that needs to be frozen before churning. The instructions for this style call for you to turn the mixer on before pouring in the sherbet base.
Churn for 20-30 minutes until the sherbet becomes like soft serve ice cream.
You can eat it at this point or if you want it to harden to a scoopable texture, transfer to freezer friendly containers to harden. I’m a big fan of these mini, single serve ice-cream containers (#CommissionsEarned).
Allow sherbet to harden for between four and twelve hours.
Scoop and serve.
These goes GREAT with mini-blueberry hand pies.
- 1 lb blueberries, preferably wild
- ¾ c sugar
- 1 t commercial ice cream stablizers
- 1 ½ c milk
- ½ c cream
- ½ c glucose
- 1 t lemon zest
- ½ c buttermilk
- ¼ c lemon juice
- Add blueberries to a saucepan and heat over medium-high heat, breaking apart with a spoon as you stir. Once the mixture boils, reduce to a simmer for 5 to 10 minutes until blueberries release juices. Transfer blueberries to blender and allow to cool for 10-15 minutes. Blend until smooth. Strain through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl and put in the fridge until ready.
- Whisk together sugar and commercial ice cream stabilizer. In a saucepan stir together sugar mixture, milk, cream and glucose. Cook whisking periodically until it comes to a full rolling boil. Boil for 2 minutes and remove from heat.
- Stir in lemon zest and allow to sit and infuse for 30 minutes.
- While the lemon infuses into the dairy, whisk together lemon zest, buttermilk, and a cup of the blueberry puree you made. Return the mixture to the fridge.
- Strain the lemon infused dairy mixture through a fine mesh strainer to remove the lemon zest pieces into a bowl.
- Place the bowl into a large bowl full of ice-water and chill until the mixture cools to 50 degrees or lower. Stir occasionally.
- Mix blueberry mixture with chilled base. Cure base in the fridge for 4 hours or overnight.
- Churn ice-cream according to manufacturer’s instructions until the texture of soft-serve.
- Transfer to freezer safe containers to harden for 4 to 12 hours.
- Enjoy.
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