I read a great post on Chowhound about making peach sorbet. The poster determined that a minimal churning time would produce the creamiest, best tasting sorbet. I, not having given a tremendous amount of thought to the issue before, would have guessed that a longer churning time would produce a creamier result. Always game for an experiment, I tried the short churning method with a plum base.
Wow.
This may only be true of non-custard based sorbets, but I got great results and completely agree with the original poster. My plum sorbet was dense, creamy and delicious. I don't think I've ever tasted an ice cream, sorbet, or gelato that tasted so wonderfully like the fresh fruit. It was also very easy to whip up. You do have to blanch the plums to remove their skin, but everything else in done in the blender. Depending on how large your plums are, you may need more plums. Mine were large and I used 7 or 8 to make 4 cups of plum puree.
If you do not have an ice cream maker, pour puree into a shallow pan or bowl and stir with a fork every hour, to break up the ice crystals, until mixture is frozen.
It's very refreshing by itself, but for an delicious and elegant dessert, serve in a glass with some prosecco or a bit of sweet white wine poured over it.
Plum Sorbet
7-10 plums, blanched, skins removed
5 tbsp sugar
1/4 cup water
Chop plums coarsely to remove pits. Combine plums, sugar and water in a blender and process until smooth. You should have about 4 cups of plum mixture.
Pour into your ice cream maker and process until it just begins to look creamy, roughly 1/2-1/3 of the time that would ordinarily be required by your machine (about 15 minutes).
Freeze, covered, until ready to use.
Pour into your ice cream maker and process until it just begins to look creamy, roughly 1/2-1/3 of the time that would ordinarily be required by your machine (about 15 minutes).
Freeze, covered, until ready to use.
Note: You can also use pluots for this recipe (a hybrid plum/apricot that is just delicious!).