1

I’ve been struggling with getting an iced tea based sorbet to not end up as a chunk of ice; I believe the canonical answer here is “use a stabilizer.”

I grabbed some gum arabic (mastic to be specific) recently to play with gomme syrup for cocktails, which gave me an idea: will it stabilize a sorbet? It should have the nice advantage of not requiring cooking the way gelatins do, AFAIK it can be activated by blending.

Will this work to make a sorbet less icy? If so, what concentration should I use?

millimoose
  • 933
  • 2
  • 7
  • 15

1 Answers1

1

The base recipe for a sorbet is normally sugar water and fruit puree. Sorbets can also be made with juices or beverages like herbs or tea. The main cause of the "icy" texture is the high water content. To avoid that, you don't necessarily need a thickening/emulsifying agent (rather than a stabilizer per se). Normally those kind of additives are put in the base recipe to avoid the splitting of the sugar that may occur if the sorbet is kept for a long time, especially if it's made with a really watery juice (as lemon for example). On the market it's possible to find some sugar syrups made specifically for sorbet that contains pectin.

But even with a thickener introduced in the recipe the main things that keep a sorbet smooth and airy are sugar (for its anti-freezing properties, the higher the sugar softer the end product will be) and the air that gets incorporated in the sorbet during the mixing in an ice cream machine. Plus the trick to the perfect ice cream or sorbet is to mix it in the ice cream maker until it feel "dry" to the touch, this way it'll keep the proper texture longer.

csk
  • 3,118
  • 8
  • 16
Simona
  • 279
  • 1
  • 4
  • 1
    Great, now assume I already know and follow all of this and consider answering my actual question. – millimoose Aug 24 '20 at 14:10
  • the plain and simple answer will be u don't arabic gum to solve your problem just more sugar and an icecream machine, and if you don't wanna end up with something that is super sweet substitute part of the sugar with glucose and dextrose – Simona Aug 24 '20 at 14:16
  • 1
    I use invert syrup at around 20%-25% weight of the total base, as well as a little honeydew melon puree and it still ends up icy with my machine. I don’t want to add more sugar or because that would need more citrus to balance, threatening to overwhelm the jasmine green tea+rose+star anise base - i.e., flavours that are subtle, not bold. Same goes for diluting with more fruit. The taste is already where I want it; it’s the texture that’s the sticking point. – millimoose Aug 24 '20 at 14:18
  • 1
    the sugar percentage is too low for a green tea sorbet, it should be aroud 40%, for this reason inverted sugar is not the best choice because is as sweet as saccarose, glucose and dextrose are way less sweet so u can use more of them wiithout altering the flavour – Simona Aug 24 '20 at 14:28
  • I also do use an ice cream churn that works fine with these ingredient ratios for fruit purees; and I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen pectin syrup anywhere. (Unless I can make it using the pectin sugar used for canning - I don’t know whether pectin is effective when it’s not cooked with all of the base. Although I suppose that’s not an issue for a base that isn’t fresh fruit to begin with.) – millimoose Aug 24 '20 at 14:41
  • 1
    I was under the impression that invert sugar is basically glucose+fructose syrup but I’m not 100% confident in that, I mainly use it for the stronger thickening power. I *might* be able to get powdered fructose and glucose but I’m not completely sure of that either; I’ll try if I see them. – millimoose Aug 24 '20 at 14:43
  • that ratio if fine with fruit purees because the overall water content of the puree is less (due to the pulp and fiber of the fruit) plus fruit contains fructose that is a type for sugar, green thea does not and it's basicalle flavoured water, the syrup that i was referring to is a type of professional base. inverted sugar is made combining sugar with an acid – Simona Aug 24 '20 at 14:47
  • I’m also curious for other bases than the tea because of some more persnickety fruits I wanted to try, where I’d prefer avoiding either dilution with a watery syrup or cooking the fruit. But if pectin is used this way professionally, I’m going to try substituting canning sugar cooked with some of the tea, it seems like there’s a reasonable chance that will work, and it’s an ingredient I know I can get in a regular grocery run. (It’s also cheap enough that I can do a test run with just water to make sure I don’t end up with a set jelly when chilled.) – millimoose Aug 24 '20 at 15:03
  • another good alternative that is cheap and easy to find either on amazon or in some health food stores is xanthane gum, it doesnt need cooking is water soluble and u only need a stick blender to mix it. with pectin u don't need to cook the fruit u can simply cook the syrup in advance and add the fruit once is cold – Simona Aug 24 '20 at 15:19
  • I usually try to avoid either adding water or cooking fruit insofar as that’s possible; that said, it probably won’t make a lot of difference to briefly boil a cup of store bought OJ out of a quart of sorbet, compared to doing that for fresh fruit. – millimoose Aug 24 '20 at 15:29
  • water is not a bad thing in sorbet in the place where i work i normally use this kind of ratio 50% fruit 25% water 25% sugar ( for all the sweet fruit sorbet like stawberry banana peach etc...) and 60% liquid and 40% sugar for tea or herbs sorbet , for lemon sorbet 25% juice 35% water and 40% sugar – Simona Aug 24 '20 at 15:46
  • I suppose it’s a preference thing; I usually make berry sorbets at home and I like those to be intense and on the tart side, so closer to like 75-80% raspberry and 20-25% invert syrup cooked with strong hibiscus tea as the liquid to pack it with flavor – millimoose Aug 24 '20 at 15:51
  • Okay, having done the experiment it seems that adding 50g gelling sugar (with 1.8% pectin content) to 500g water and 50g table sugar and a pinch of citric acid gave me a thick but still flowing liquid. I’ll make a whole batch of the stuff to verify but it seems that about 1.5g added pectin for a litre of tea or other watery sorbet base - or subbing around ten percentile points of the total sugar with this type of gelling sugar - *might* do the trick for watery sorbet bases and/or anybody who wants to keep sugar content on the low end for whichever reason. – millimoose Aug 26 '20 at 11:06
  • (One of my previous questions was about using xylitol instead of table sugar to lower calorie content of berry sorbet, and I should revisit that. Using xylitol instead of invert sugar gave me the similar texture problem, and since I can get pure pectin and have access to a precise scale I could give it another go.) – millimoose Aug 26 '20 at 11:12
  • another good substitute for sugar in "sugar free" ice cream is sorbitol – Simona Aug 26 '20 at 13:24
  • 1
    As usual I go by “whatever the heck I can get at the Lidl around the corner” :D I think xylitol is trendy these days because the name “birch sugar” sounds more natural, and I think it’s less laxative than sorbitol. (IIRC erythritol is best for that but: not on the store shelf.) In that question I ended up self-answering my findings, and it seems to be about as thickening as table sugar, which isn’t enough with my $30 churn; using all invert sugar is what helps my berry sorbets go from “sandy” to creamy. – millimoose Aug 26 '20 at 13:28
  • Of course stone fruit season is pretty much here, and all of those are *loaded* with pectin and benefit from a little heat, so I’ll be free of lab work for a few batches :D (The bf’s grandma sent me a bag of plums which are one of my absolute favourite sorbets along with blackcurrant+star anise; and just so happen to be very forgiving.) – millimoose Aug 26 '20 at 13:30
  • pastry in general is a lot like science, learning the chemistry of some of the modern ingredients is really helpfull, plus if you can find a store that sells professional ingredients in smaller packets for home use is very helpfull and very interesting – Simona Aug 26 '20 at 19:39