Watermelon Sorbet

    I love to make ice-cream.  I think I may have shared this fact before.  I am a regular Ben and Jerry.  I love to experiment with different types of ice-creams, the kids like me to also.  Rowan has been bugging me for a while now to make watermelon ice-cream (Rowan LOVES watermelon).  I have been mulling this one around, trying to decide the best way to make watermelon ice-cream.

    This afternoon I had that light bulb moment as I was slicing up watermelon wedges for the kids to snack on, not watermelon ice-cream, watermelon sorbet!  The first thing I did was too pour through my ice-cream making cookbooks (hard to believe but there are actually lots of ice-cream cookbooks out there).  None of them had a recipe for watermelon sorbet, that's weird.  I would create a recipe on my own, heaven help us all.  I took 1/4 of a watermelon and but it into small pieces.  I then put this into my blender.  It did not blend.  I then poured all of the chunks into my food processor.  It blended perfectly, but it also splashed out of the food processor and down the side of my stove and onto the floor.  I am not sure what genius created the prototype for my food processor, but I don't think he should be employed by Black and Decker any more.

After it was all blended I took my sieve and put a coffee filter into the bottom of it, and placed it into a bowl. I then poured the contents of the food processor into the sieve.  It took a long time to strain.

    While the watermelon puree was straining, I poured 2 cups of water and 1/2 of a cup of white sugar into a small sauce pan.  I cooked it until it was almost boiled, and then added an envelope of Knox gelatine (1 tbsp or 15 ml) and whisked it.  When that was all cool I added the watermelon juice to the mix.  I think I now know why they call it "watermelon".  It is pretty much all water.  There was maybe an eighth of a cup of pulp left from 1/4 of a watermelon.  When it was all stirred in I put it into a jug and refrigerated it... it's a good thing that I own a dishwasher!

    While we were eating dinner I poured the jug of watermelon mixture into the ice-cream maker.  It took about 25 minutes to freeze up.  It turned out pretty good.  It had a nice light fresh taste to it.  Christopher suggested that it would taste really nice mixed with some vodka, I agree with my husband on this one.

    I think that I know have sorbets under my belt, I think I might try lemon sorbet next.  Wish me luck!