Blackberry Sorbet

Oregon summer is synonymous with blackberries. Domestic or wild, they are the constant thread through the summer months out here. The industry is huge and besides plain old blackberries, we have so many different crosses and cultivars: youngberry, dewberry, ollalieberry, tayberry, loganberry, kotaberry, and (DC's favorite) marionberry spring instantly to mind.

Paradoxically, wild blackberries, the native Pacific kind and the noxious invasive Trailing Himalayan, are also our biggest scourge, rapidly covering acres of valuable property with vicious and hard to eradicate vines, the de facto kudzu of the Pacific Northwest.

It's fair to say that we have a love-hate relationship with blackberries. But now that it is berry season, love is prevailing a bit over hate.

Blackberry Sorbet

What to do with our bounty? I'm not a big dessert fan, but in the heat of the summer, I really do love a good sorbet, one that comes across more flavorful than sweet. And that is where our latest haul of blackberries ended up: in the ice cream maker.

Blackberry Sorbet Recipe

For roughly one quart of sorbet, you'll need the following:

3 dry pints of ripe blackberries
1 cup of simple syrup
zest and juice of one lime

Place the berries and simple syrup in your blender and blend until smooth. Strain through a fine mesh sieve and discard the seeds. Add the lime zest. Gradually add lime juice until you achieve the sweet-tart balance that makes you happy. Refrigerate the sorbet mix until cold. Spin it until frozen in an ice cream maker.

Ice Cream Machine

Ice Cream Machine in Action

I'm not a big fan of single-purpose kitchen equipment, as I have discussed in numerous posts. However, there is one piece of single-purpose equipment that I brought all the way from the restaurant in Virginia to our new home in Oregon: a professional ice cream machine. It's big, it's really heavy, and Ann insisted that we bring it.

Why? Well, if the texture of the blackberry sorbet in the top photo doesn't tell you everything that you need to know, there's not much else I can say. A great machine makes ultra-smooth sorbets, ice creams, and gelati. The key is even refrigeration and consistent churning that makes the tiniest ice crystals which feel like silk on your palate.

This machine was wildly expensive when I bought it a decade or more ago and a replacement would be even more spendy today. It was in service all night, every night at the restaurant, churning out sorbets for intermezzos in our nightly tasting menu. The machine has thousands of hours of run time, yet I venture to say, it will long outlast me.

I wouldn't buy one just for my home (it would cost a mortgage payment) but I am sure glad that I have one.