Simple Fresh Blackberry Sorbet
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With Memorial Day weekend here, we prefer to keep our festivities somewhat casual despite the long weekend. Since my husband is a veteran of the Iraq war, it’s important to us as a family to remember that this isn’t a weekend for celebration or excessive parties out at the lake despite the numerous invitations from friends. Instead, we try to surround ourselves with loved ones and do a casual barbecue at some point of the weekend, usually cooking up some chicken, pasta salad, garlic bread (or tomato toast) and some kind of dessert that isn’t very time consuming or complicated to put together.
My go-to blackberry sorbet falls into both of those categories. Using fresh berries from my parents yard, this recipe is a fantastic way to use up all of those berries we’re overwhelmed by. In fact, it takes more time to pick the berries than it does to prepare this deliciously tangy sorbet recipe. If you happen to have a handful of strawberries lying around needing to be used, go ahead and add them to the mixture for some added sweetness.
A ripe blackberry waiting to be picked alongside another berry that needs another day or two of water and sunshine.
You will need an ice cream maker; we like this one but we’d love it if we had this one. If you want to make this simple dessert a little more special, add some sparkling wine to the individual serving bowls just prior to serving with a mint sprig.
Easy Fresh Blackberry Sorbet
- 1-1/2 cups water
- 1 cup sugar
- 3 cups fresh blackberries
- Juice from 1 lemon
Combine water with the sugar and bring to a boil over high heat. Boil until the solution is clear. Add the washed and sorted berries and continue boiling until cooked through and smooth, about 5 minutes.
Blackberries just minutes after being picked. Be sure to remove any spiderwebs or spider legs.
Bailey, who enjoys helping out with yard work. It's nice to have a friend with you while searching through those prickly vines.
Purée the berries through a strainer, removing seeds and much of the pulp.
Cooked blackberries being strained. Out, out pesky seeds!
Add the berry liquid, combine with the lemon juice. Refrigerate overnight.
Put the solution into an ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer’s instructions.
Of course you’ll need a super-fun ice cream scoop. We like this one (notice it can do double-duty when baking cookies…) or this one.
Your special sorbet deserves special bowls, like these or these
You can use any kind of berries you like—raspberries, strawberries or blueberries. You can also use frozen berries, but with summertime upon us, why not go for the fresh stuff like we did?
My grandmother's little dessert bowls are perfect for serving this special sorbet.