Savoring the end of summer- Apricot Sorbet

When having a home with many trees and a handy gardener, I often find a surplus of fruits and vegetables that need to be consumed quickly or given away. In this case, our neighbor had been out of town and given us authority to harvest and distribute apricots from his tree.

I am always finding new things to create with my surplus that are fun and healthy. I'm getting tired of desserts, I want to stay healthy and reduce my carbohydrate intake, and I don't really find a challenge in making desserts like puddings, custards, pies, cakes and cookies anymore; plus, I have way more fruits than can fit into a cake.

So the results involve me trying to rearrange and enhance the properties of the fruit, meanwhile concentrating on withstanding the temptation to overpower the essence and beauty of my fresh organically obtained fruits by adding creams and batters. This focus seems so daunting for me, and it would be so much easier to make an apricot pie than think of more creative things to do!  So to help me think out of the box, I've resulted in making spiced poached pears from the pear tree, persimmon chips and souffle from my coworker's persimmons, roasted apples with cheese and rosemary, and a slurry of a few other different desserts for fall.

I think one of the easiest options is to simply puree my fruit and grab my cheap little ice cream maker that I treasure so dearly. Combining flavors can be a trick, but with fruits, rose and orange essence, vanilla, and ground spices can transform and enhance the flavor of nearly any fruit!

What I'm showing here is a Apricot-Vanilla Sorbet, accompanied with a vanilla custard ice cream and fresh strawberries. I find that apricots and vanilla enhance each others' qualities of tart and semi-sweet, and the mild tartness of the strawberries combined with the warmness of the vanilla custard provide a contrast of tastes that help the brain isolate the individual and unique flavors in the custard for an awesome dessert experience.

Apricot Sorbet and Vanilla Custard Ice Cream with fresh Strawberries

Apricot Sorbet
Ingredients:

• 4 cups frozen apricots, slightly thawed
• 2/3 cup simple syrup recipe (here)
• 2 tb ground gum mastic (also known as gum arabic)
• Purée apricots with simple syrup until the mixture is smooth and no apricot pieces remain.
• 1/8 tsp seeds of a vanilla bean (cut the bean in half lengthwise and scrape the seeds out with a spoon)
• Add the gum arabic powder and mix until combined.

Put this mixture in your ice cream maker and turn it on. Since the apricots were partially frozen, the mixture shouldn't take more than 20 minutes to freeze in the machine. If you are not using frozen apricots, refrigerate your puree for 4 hours before putting it in your machine. It will require around an hour of churning if you use refrigerated apricot puree.

Serve this little scoop of summer with strawberries. To warm up this summery fruit flavor, I paired it with a homemade custard-based vanilla bean ice cream.

Nutrition Facts for 1/2c apricot sorbet:

Calories: 90, total carbohydrates: 17g, total fiber 2g, total fat: 0g, total protein 0g.