First up, happy leap year, everyone! This recipe is one of the first ice cream recipes I’ve ever made and it’s a really simple process. Hope you all enjoy!
Sorbet or sherbet? Whenever it comes to adding cheese or non-milk or cream dairy products to sorbet bases, nobody can ever give me a straight answer on that. One time, we used buttermilk in a sorbet base at a restaurant I worked in, and that was still a sorbet. Another time, we added just plain milk, and that suddenly made it a sherbet. To be honest, I prefer saying sorbet, because it sounds more elegant, and sherbet, it just sounds like a really senile foreign old man trying to say sorbet, but can’t because of his lisp, accent, and inability to pronounce sorbet properly. And before you call me a racist for that, I was imagining it was an old Asian person, so suck it.
Anyways, mascarpone sorbet is one of those things I learned how to make really early on when I started learning about how to make ice creams. Mascarpone cheese itself is tangy, creamy, light, and nutty, and when you pair it with sugar, those qualities are exemplified. I’m pairing that with cherimoya or the custard apple, because it’s an equally delicious ingredient, and the classic cheese and apples combination from New England suddenly finds a connection via an Italian cheese and an Asian fruit. Custard apple, as the name suggests, is creamy, sweet, and soft. The tang from the mascarpone cuts through the sweetness, and the two become a match that compliment one another perfectly. An optional ingredient to this would be the mizuame or corn syrup, which I prefer to use, as it stabilizes the sorbet and gives it a firmer texture, but if you do not have it, it is not absolutely necessary.
Makes about 1 pint of sorbet:
8 oz. mascarpone cheese
1/2 cup custard apple; skin and seeds removed (very important, as both are toxic!)
3/4 cups sugar
3/4 cups water
1 tablespoon mizuame or light corn syrup
1/4 cup Yakult (one small bottle is 1/4 cup!) (can substitute with water, if not desired)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
a pinch of salt
Blend together the custard apple, sugar, mizuame, vanilla, and salt. Then add the mascarpone, and slowly blend in the water. Strain into a container and freeze until solid as a fucking rock. Remove, and blitz the living hell out of it using a food processor or blender. Place back into a container and freeze again for at least one more hour. Repeat this process until the sorbet is creamy in texture and soft enough to scoop with a spoon; it will take at least one additional cycle of freezing and blending.
Freddy's Harajuku 