The Flavor of Flowers

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Traunfeld uses lemon verbena as a sorbet base flavor, often combining it with ‘Mabel Gray’ lemon geranium leaves. His Black Pansy Sorbet is stunning — a kind of hot magenta — and uses very simple ingredients: black pansies, sugar, water and lemon juice. His combinations inspired me to come up with more (click here for recipes or click here for a list of ingredients perfect for creating your own recipe). The flavor and texture is pleasant whether used between courses or as a light dessert.

Methods

There are two main methods for making a sorbet from flowers or herbs:

1. The cooked method requires you to steep the flowers in hot sugar water, strain and add the remaining ingredients.
2. The uncooked method requires the use of a food processor to blend superfine sugar with flowers or herbs and then add the remaining ingredients.

You don’t have to have the Donvier sorbet maker. However, I’ve tried several and found the Donvier 1-quart ice cream freezer to be my favorite. It’s quick, reliable, easy to use, simple to clean and freezes a very firm sorbet in just minutes. There are several electric frozen yogurt/sorbet mixers (including Cuisinarts) on the market that work well. Or you simply can pour the prepared liquid into a metal bowl in your freezer and stir well with a whisk every 5 minutes. After about 30 minutes, you’ll have a good slush and you can let it finish freezing.

Serving Note

When serving sorbet to several people, to make sure it remains well frozen until it reaches the table, freeze the sorbet until completely firm, scoop out servings onto a waxed paper-covered cookie sheet and quickly freeze in the freezer. In any sorbet with wine or other alcohol, the sorbet will not freeze hard in the sorbet maker, so finishing it off in the freezer, already scooped, helps.

Lilac Sorbet

Serves 4 to 6

This recipe is courtesy of Cathy Wilkinson Barash, who says she adapted it from her dianthus sorbet recipe in her book Edible Flowers: From Garden to Palate (Fulcrum Press, 1995).

• 2 cups water
• ¼ cup sugar
• ½ cup lilac florets,* stems removed and coarsely chopped (the stronger scented, the better)

1. Pour water into an enamel or stainless steel saucepan. Add sugar and florets, stirring well to dissolve sugar.
2. Bring liquid to a boil, turn down heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.
3. Pour into an ice cream maker and process according to manufacturer’s directions.
4. If not serving immediately, scoop sorbet onto waxed paper in serving-sized portions, on a cookie sheet and freeze. Once frozen, put in a freezer bag.

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