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In my continuing search for
recipes that will translate well to alternative ingredients, I discovered Sweet & Natural Baking
by Mäni Niall, owner of the California Mäni’s bakery. It was in the cheapie books pile at
Barnes & Noble, most likely because the cover on mine is different than the
one advertised online now.
My copy of Sweet & Natural
Baking has many items tagged for future experiments, but since it is summer, I
turned to the frozen desserts for this column’s write up. The dessert of choice
is Blood Orange Sherbet. I didn’t have blood oranges on hand, so I made due with
orange juice. My apologies for not using fresh juice, but Tropicana was on sale,
unlike the fresh oranges.
The recipe also calls for a liquid
fruit juice concentrate or fruit juice reduction as the sweetener. For this, I
substituted agave nectar. If you remember from my last column, I used
agave nectar for baking. Just to show you its versatility, I’m using it here in
a frozen dessert.
The final substitution I made was
the milk. It called for low-fat milk, and I used non-fat.
Here’s the complete recipe from
the book.
The recipe asks you to cook the
orange juice with the sweetener to dissolve the concentrate, then chill. I
skipped that step, and simply combined all the ingredients I substituted, and
poured the mixture into my little Deni ice cream maker.
2
cups of orange juice, 1 cup of agave nectar, and 3 cups of non-fat milk. Because
I like combinations of orange juice and milk to taste like creamsickles, I added
a little vanilla (about 1 tsp.) for good measure.
Here’s the sherbet churning away.
I must have had it going for 20 minutes before it started thickening up. It
never got that creaminess you typically experience with sherbet. It was pretty
wet, but the Deni started overheating, so I cut the power.
I tried a couple of teaspoons of
the soupy sherbet, and it was pretty tasty. Then, I scooped it into a few
serving-sized plastic containers to freeze for a few hours. After freezing, it
more resembled Italian ice than sherbet.
Things to try next
time:
1. Add cinnamon instead of vanilla
for a different flavor profile.
2. Use smaller quantities to help
the Deni do a better job of achieving the right
consistency.
3. Try fresh orange juice (maybe
Wegman’s has blood oranges).
4. Try making the Fruit Juice
Reduction on page 23 of the book.
If
you’ve made frozen desserts using a sweetener other than sugar, please let me
know.
Enjoy!
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