Orange Sorbet – a Palate Cleanser, made out of freshly squeezed orange juice, when served in the orange peel bowls and garnished with mint leaves, makes poetry on a plate.
We’ve had a bumper crop of oranges this year on our backyard tree, and one of the quick Palate Cleansers / Desserts I like to make is Orange Sorbet. If you live in California, and have a few of these citrus trees in your backyard or at your Farmers’ market, you might also be having a lot of these fruits during this season, that you are thinking how to use. Eating the seasonal fruits is always advisable. Orange Sorbet is a very quick, easy and awesome palate cleanser / dessert recipe, which uses just a few ingredients.
An added bonus to this post – do check out the funny, behind the scenes anecdote and a hopeless attempt to poetry, depicting the work of a food-blogger I have shared on this blog. If you are a food blogger, you will totally be able to relate ๐ And if you are not a food-blogger but are amused at anyone who takes pictures of their food, it will give you an added chuckle ๐
Jump to Recipe- What-is-a-Palate-Cleanser
- What are some of the other recipes that can be made using Oranges?
- What other fruits can be used for making Sorbet?
- Amusing musings – the funny anecdote ๐
The fact that orange peels make a wonderful serving bowl as well, helps take this simple, humble palate cleanser / healthy dessert a notch above, by serving it in orange bowls made out of these peels, which always creates intrigue and interest among guests you are serving this to. This recipe can be made using any citrus or non-citrus fruits.
This is a minimalist recipe, using just a couple of ingredients, really!
Orange Sorbet is a vegetarian, vegan, dairy free, fat free, gluten free, no-cook recipe.
The oranges that grow on this particular tree are bit on the sour side. I use it to make juice, sorbet, salads, soups etc. Due to it’s sourness, the sugar content in my recipe might be slightly higher, but you can easily adjust the sugar content depending upon the sweetness/sourness of the fruit that you are using
What is a Palate Cleanser?
A Palate cleanser, as the name suggests, cleanses the taste palate in between different courses of meals, so that you can clearly distinguish the taste of different food items, especially the ones with robust/heavy flavors, when eaten one after the other.
I often create 5 to 7 course meals for several occasions, and many a times, these are Indian meals. Indian meals are known to have a wide array of amazing delicious flavors and tastes. A palate cleanser is something which is neutral tasting, and hence made with simple ingredients that don’t over power, that cleanses the taste palate in between 2 meal items, so that you are ready to taste the next course of the meal with a brand new freshness instead of letting the flavors from the previous course inter-mingle with the current one, which wouldn’t let you get the true taste of that particular course.
Orange Sorbet | A Palate Cleanser
โฅ Please rate the recipe if you like it. โฅ
Ingredients
- 2 cups Orange juice freshly squeezed
- 2 tablespoons Sugar / maple syrup / honey
- 1 teaspoon Lemon juice
- A pinch of Salt
- A few sprigs of Mint for garnishing
Instructions
- Cut the oranges in half, squeeze the juice out using a citrus juicer or a reamer, carefully saving the scooped out peels to be used a serving bowls. Put these peels in the freezer.
- Add sugar / honey / maple syrup or any sweetener. Add salt, lemon juice. Mix well.
- Transfer the juice in a glass or an ice-cream container. Cover well. Freeze it for 2 hours.
- After 2 hours, remove from the freezer, scrape it a bit with the fork, it should break down into pieces. Give it a quick whizz in a food-processor/blender to make it smooth, but not for too long as the heat of the food processor might start melting the sorbet.
If you feel the sorbet melted a bit while in food processor, it’s ok to put it back in freezer for a little bit again, before serving. - Serve it in the cute orange peel bowls or regular bowls. Garnish with a sprig of mint. Enjoy!
Notes
- It is best to put the serving bowls in freezer, prior to serving the sorbet,ย so that when served, it doesn’t melt quickly.
- You can also dissolve the sugar in a little bit of juice on a stove top.
- If you just want to use the fork to scrape it without using a food-processor, you can still make it – it would be more like a granita, with slightly coarser texture.
- This recipe can be made with any citrus fruits or berries or any other fruits like mangoes, peaches etc.
- The sugar need to be adjusted based on the taste and how sweet or sour the fruit is.
- I did not add any water, but if you want, you can. You can also add club soda if you like.ย
Nutrition
โฅ Did you like or try this recipe? If so, I would love to hear from you. Please rate the recipe and leave a comment below.ย You can also follow me on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook for more delicious posts and recipes.ย ย โฅ
I used a citrus juicer similar to this.
What are some of the other recipes that can be made using Oranges?
This is the season of oranges, and various citrus and non-citrus fruits. You can make many different recipes using these fresh in-season fruits. Here are some salad, soup, juice recipes that you can make using oranges:
What other fruits can be used for making sorbet?
You can make various different kinds of sorbets using citrus and non-citrus fruits, like orange sorbet, lemon sorbet, grapefruit sorbet, strawberry sorbet, blueberry sorbet, raspberry sorbet, peach sorbet, mango sorbet etc.
Here is a little behind the scenes anecdote, as promised. ๐
Amusing musings of a food-blogger ๐
The sorbet melting, the sun setting, ran out of mint leaves;
The aperture the f-stop, the backdrop – oh what gives!
Grateful still,
so what if the sun set, there was still some light;
so what if the batteries died, not giving up in spite of my plight;
so what if I ran around in frenzy, between refrigerator and the battery;
so what if I ran out of mint, the 3 tiny leaves on plant felt like a lottery.
The pictures, when editing, still don’t satisfy,
It’s another day tomorrow, one more time I shall try;
There are no failures, you either win or you learn,
creating poetry on a plate, oh what fun!
The research, the writing, the SEO, and works,
oh wonderful life of a food-blogger – the quirks and the perks!
Well, that was my humble, hopeless attempt to a poetry, making fun of the situation when I was absolutely tired to re-shoot the recipe :p
Being a food blogger comes with it’s own set of struggles and challenges, which are sometimes quite funny (when looking back – during the process it’s sometimes tiring and frustrating). This was a little behind the scenes anecdote that I thought I’d share, which you might find funny, and may be, just may be, appreciate the patience, the perseverance that goes behind blogging. 9 years of this and counting – yet, blogging gives me immense pleasure after all this, to share my art with this world, and make poetry on a plate, one plate at a time, one meal at a time.
Making this sorbet, was piece of cake – one of the easiest recipes. But photographing – a whole different game. A seemingly simple task turned out to be an adventure in itself.
It has been raining in the Bay Area quite heavily and so each day, by the time I found time in the evening to photograph this recipe, it was quite dark and I wanted natural day light to photograph this. Finally on Saturday, I found time, I thawed the sorbet, put it back in refrigerator, got the backdrop, tripod, camera etc. ready, only to find out the camera batteries died within 30 seconds of me putting it on tripod!
Another challenge, I needed to bring contrast in the picture with mint leaves, as it’s also an integral part of the recipe – only to find out that we had run out of mint-leaves, so went hunting outside in the garden, and the mint plant outside had 3 not so fresh leaves! I thought – oh well, at least we have something.
Went back to get the camera batteries from the charger, put it back in camera, got the sorbet back from freezer, started shooting – only to find out in 5 shots that the battery died again as it had been charged only for a few minutes, given the time constraint as the sun was setting. Put it back to charge again – repeated this probably 5 times back to back every few minutes. And the sun was gradually setting and I was racing against time.
All this while trying to keep the sorbet from melting and may be 10 trips to refrigerator and back – get the battery first or get the sorbet out from the refrigerator first – set it up. Oh the dilemma ๐
Finally shot a few pictures – I didn’t want to accept it, but the sun had already set when I clicked my pictures. At night, when I got to editing these, the ones I liked, the mint leaves weren’t looking great, and rest were sort of dark-ish with not sufficient natural light. So at last, decided I will go and buy fresh mint tomorrow, and re-shoot the recipe. And so I did the next day, following the same drill, though the mint leaves were fresh this time, and the batteries were fully charged ๐ Here is one of the behind the scenes picture of melting sorbet. This is still a lot better picture compared to the many other recipes I shoot ๐
โฅ Did you like or try this recipe? If so, I would love to hear from you. Please rate the recipe and leave a comment below.ย You can also follow me on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook for more delicious posts and recipes.ย ย โฅ
Martin
Brilliant you make it seem so simple and an easy to follow recipe . I love the presentation and will certainly be having a go at making this. Thanks!
Eat More Art
Glad you like it. Thank you for your feedback.
Chloe
Hello!
My first time on your blog. I never leave reviews on food blogs, but just wanted to say how you encouraged me tonight. Often people portray their lives as effortless, but hearing your back-story encouraged me to work hard and not to give up. Success comes with many lessons often. I have been going through a very, very difficult and discouraging time in my life, but you blog post encouraged me to keep trying, and no matter how hard things are, to still enjoy the search for true happiness and success. ๐ Thank you!
Sonal
Oh what a wonderful comment.
And glad you found my silly musings encouraging.
I also re-visited it today after a long time because of your comment and I got the encouragement that I needed to push through today. Thanks you.