This is one of the simplest frozen desserts I have ever made. And it was delicious. But it was, in fact, quite ICY and not as SMOOTH and CREAMY as I like. And I attribute this icyness to the crappy small sorbet maker that I bought on sale last year. It is a Cuisinart home ice cream maker with a small capacity and you freeze the gel-filled half gallon or so container and use that to churn the ice cream or sorbet mixture. With temperatures at the beach hovering well above 90F, the little Cuisinart just couldn’t achieve the low temperatures required to freeze the sorbet smoothly and instead, large icy particles formed and I had a texture problem. If you aren’t too picky, you can conceivably make this recipe even WITHOUT an ice cream maker and I will explain how below.
To make, I took 6-7 medium sized ripe local carabao mangoes from the Nasugbu market, removed the meat of the mangoes and placed them in the pitcher of a powerful blender. Add some simple syrup of water and sugar or in a pinch, some granulated sugar up to your desired level of sweetness. I added very little, say 3-4 tablespoons worth. Then you can add a little squirt of fresh lime or dayap juice to brighten the flavor of the mango and blitz this until it is smooth. Place this mixture in the fridge or an ice bath until it is cold, 2 hours in a fridge, minimum. Place the mixture in a home style ice cream or sorbet maker and churn per manufacturer’s instructions. It should take 20-30 minutes, depending on how hot the ambient temperature is when you decide to do this. When it looks quite viscous and is almost frozen, remove and place in a container and store in the freezer until hard. You may want to serve this STRAIGHT OUT of the ice cream machine, and though it will be quite soft, it will have the best and freshest flavor. If you don’t have an ice-cream maker, then place the mixture from the blender into a freezer proof dish or plastic container and let this freeze a bit. Then take a spoon or fork and scrape it to make icy bits and pieces. Do this several times until it looks ready to freeze some more. The latter version will be more ice-y than a machine made version, but you know what, with your eyes closed and a few seconds on your tongue to melt the harsher ice bits, it will still taste pretty darned good. Enjoy this plain or as part of a more elaborate dessert. No milk or cream was added, hence it is a sorbet and not a sherbet. Enjoy!
26 Responses
Who say’s desserts have to be sinful and a guilty pleasure? Here’s a perfect example of an enjoyable dessert that’s fresh, healthy and just in time for Summer.
Love mangoes in any form especially our very good carabao variety and sorbet a good tropical dessert. If you look closely at the ingredients listed in a sorbet box it lists either carob beam gum, carrageenan and xantham gum as one of the ingredients. They are gelling agents preventing fruit water from crystallization which caused the icy textured sorbet rather than smooth ones. They are available at health food stores. Even with good ice cream machine one cannot achieve a smooth sorbet without the addition of these gelling agents. You can use our unflavored bar agar agar bar in place of these gelling agents. For the amount you made here, I will use half of the agar agar (gulaman) bar and mix it with the sugar syrup 10 minutes after you took it off the stove. Boiling the agar agar bar loses its gelling potency. Even for buko and lychee sorbet this works well too or any sorbet.
my comment is about the new poll.
i enjoy your blog and i try to visit as often as i can. i am not putting in my vote bacause i like your posts, whatever they are, as they come everyday, we never know what we are getting, just like a box of chocolates (from forrest gump.
I agree with mrs m, I’m not going to vote because I enjoy every post no matter what topic it is.To prove that I visit your site more than twice a day..:)
The mango sorbet looks really yummy and easy to make..too bad I cannot find good mangoes (that can compare to the taste of Phil. mangoes) around here.
Mango = summer and summer is definitely here!
Uyab will definitely enjoy this when I make this. She’s complaining of being too fat (not!) and wants to cut back on fattening food. So a mango sorbet would be a good alternative for her.
Thanks for sharing MM!
As for your poll, going to your website everyday is like, as the cliche goes, opening a box of chocolates. It’s like a little treat everyday so I enjoy whatever is posted. So no vote for me. *lol*
yeah this is the best to beat the summer heat!Thanks Maria Clara for that tip on agaragar–will it be the same if I use Knox gelatin instead? I have an ice cream maker(though just the cheap brand that uses lots of ice with salt while churning) and I have made some respectable flavored ice delights that my family loved!
I just checked in to MarketManila after 2 days absence…and I refused to open the April 1 blog “It’s time to say Goodbye”. i just KNOW it’s an April Fool’s JOKE!!!! You, MM are: 1) not a cruel man to deprive us of our daily fix and 2) you couldn’t stay away from food blogging for long! Nice try, though! Hehe!!! (I can just imagine all the bloggers – all 203! – who commented and begged you not to say the G word!!!)
Hey MarketMan!
As for the polls, I am not voting either because being involved and loving food not only involves cooking but the serendipitous moments in markets, travels and recommendations from the grapevine, don’t you think?
For people just learning to cook, how about posting something on super basic food 101 (i.e. how to tell fresh produce in the markets, comparing ingredients from the same family, etc.)?
Or how about cooking for people with special dietary needs like diabetes, high uric acid, etc.?
I have not yet finished scouring the archives so please forgive me if you have already several posts on the above topics done.
I love your blog and it’s the first thing I open up in the morning before working. It has indeed been helpful and thank you very much for sharing!
More power!
Beth: yes, you can use Knox powdered gelatin but you have to bloom it first – keep the gelatin in a bowl of cold water and let it dissolve in the water before mixing it with the hot syrup. My grandmother had used agar agar in her buko sorbet since the 60s so I know for a fact it works well especially with our humid weather. The gelling properties of agar stays even in our humid weather not like Knox it has to be at a certain temperature before the gelling power kicks in. The idea behind this is like brushing those fruits in a fruit tart with apricot jam or glazing gelatin so they will not leech out their liquid. Remember you are not making a panna cota you want to glaze the fruit with the gelatin. If you can get your hands in Elizabeth Falkner Demolition Desserts she discussed sorbet making and her cookbook has comic cartoon characters which I believe it is her. It has comics portion for entertain I guess.
This is good for those of us who are lactose intolerant.
Cuisinart is indeed one the best brand of kitchen equipment to have. Mine is still in the box gathering dust, you have encouraged me to use it now, thanks!
Keep it coming MM, after that frightful April Fool’s Episode
of signing out, its good to know you are still out there posting your interesting ideas and for sharing them.
MarketMan, I myself just made Vanilla ice cream last Saturday. I used the Kitchenaid ice cream maker attachment. My “tastetesters” commented the mixture tasted good, but it was very icy that they had a hard time scooping it out of the tub! I’m quite disappointed. Any idea why it turned icy? (Mine had both gata and cream, and i used cassava flour as a stabilizer) Perhaps more cream is needed? OR, my hunch is that the Kitchenaid attachment couldn’t bring the temperature low enough to incorporate air into my mixture??? It was indeed a hot day… HELP!
Thank you very much Maria Clara!I like the scientific explanation—the agar preventing the liquid of the fruit from leeching out and thus preventing the formation of crystals!I’ll try using it next time I make sorbets.Thanks again for the helpful tip!
In theory, if its the case of making sorbet out of mangoes, you won’t need agar or gelatin to achieve a good consistency. This is because the mango is widely known as a fruit that freezes so well. Notice that when you freeze mango flesh, its not as crystal-ly as you might imagine, its pretty fine actually.
One thing I won’t definitely try though, is put granulated sugar directly in any of the steps. I’ll make a simple syrup first and put that. I think any lingering trace of sugar crystals in the mix will be the seed of ice crystals later. Better not risk it.
for those with cuisinart ice cream makers, how long does it take before the bowl freezes? i’ve put mine in the freezer for up to 3 days and i still here water slushing when i shake it. i read there should be no sound. i’m now wondering which is defective — the bowl or my freezer.
esquire, the bowl should freeze after 24 hours or so. There should be NO slushing sound. To test your freezer. Put a large plastic cup 3/4 full of water in your freezer, and it if isn’t ice by about 8-10 hours later, your freezer isn’t cold enough and you should get it checked. chad, in general I would agree with you wholeheartedly… definitely add syrup. However, with the sweet and slightly acidic mango, if you are only adding a few tablespoons of sugar and blitzing it then letting it sit in the fridge for 2-3 hours, the sugar will almost certainly dissolve fully. If one makes a simple syrup, one is also adding some more water into the mixture overall, it is the water that will cause the crystals as well… Piper, I suspect it is just way too hot here to really make decent ice cream with a less than brilliant ice cream maker. In the same weekend, we made two other ice creams using our white mountain old fashioned ice cream churner and they both turned out utterly brilliant, so the equipment does matter, I think…
Certain fresh fruits like papayas, guavas, pineapple, kiwi, mangoes and I think peaches contain enzymes which break down the collagen properties of gelatine…so it is best to cook the fruit to destroy the enzymes before adding them to any gelatine based desserts.
I guessed right – it was an April Fool’s joke – nonetheless my heart skipped a bit. Marketman has been a ‘pipeline’ for most of us who live outside the Philippines. :)
PiPer- Ice Cream’s #1 enemy is water in the mix. Instead of a smooth outcome, you’ll get ice.
Is not sorbet meant to be grainy that’s why they call it granita in Italian?
You can get smoother results by freezing the fruit first, before the blending step. Add just enough cold liquid (simple syrup, or sometimes I use skim milk, or water with a couple of Splenda packets, plus some kalamansi or lemon juice) to help the blender do it’s job. When it comes out of the blender it is practically a sorbet already, I don’t even use the ice cream maker anymore. Spoon into plastic containers and freeze to harden up some more.
You need a good quality blender with a strong motor to do this :)
michelle, thanks for that, I will semi-freeze the fruit next time. Apicio, you may want to read this link to a NYTimes article from 16 years ago… if I am to understand it correctly, it is possible that my sorbet didn’t have enough sugar and was indeed closer to a granite or granita that is more icy ad shard-like. The french sorbets apparently rely on a higher sugar content, and later some aditives to get that smooth “creamier” texture…
Is there any special reason – in terms of method – you chose carabao mangoes over “classic” Guimaras mangoes? Or is it just a question of taste?
I should try making this with the classic science experiment of ice cubes and salt to make “instant” ice cream! Too impatient to wait several hours e.
Wow you actually have something as single-use ice cream maker (single use in that you can only do one thing with it … not that you would only use it once). I’d have to resort to ice-cream maker free sorbet … I like it icy anyway. =)
this looks so heavenly MM!
Emily, I used the mangoes available in the local market… no other reason. wysgal, if you are referring to the white mountain ice cream churner, it is brilliant.
Thanks MM! Will check my freezer out