Christmas tree sorbet

An aromatic sorbet to cleanse the palate

This is a simple and easy to make sorbet that is a lot of fun to make at Christmas. It is best eaten within a few days of making it while the flavour is freshest and most pronounced.

A recipe for Christmas tree sorbet

Ingredients
10g tree needles
250g pear puree
250g water
200g sugar
Juice of 1 lemon
Pinch of salt

Before

Chop the needles up a bit and add to the water. Bring this to a boil and remove from the heat. Add the sugar and stir to dissolve. Now it’s time to taste. My 10g suggestion is what works for me with a fresh, aromatic Norwegian Fir. But your needles may be less potent. You want this to be pleasantly tasting of pine, the flavour will soften when it’s frozen so if you want to add more pine then go ahead. Be bold. It’s hard to make this too strong.

Let this cool and then sieve out the needles.

Add the cooled pine syrup to your pear puree, lemon juice and salt. Mix well and leave in the freezer overnight.

Since we didn’t churn this sorbet, the ice crystals that make up the sorbet will be too large, giving it a grainy texture. To get the smooth and silky texture you really want we need to use a food processor. The trick is to blitz it quickly so it doesn’t start to melt. To do this, take your sorbet from the freezer and, as quickly as you can, cut it into cubes. Blitz these sorbet cubes in your processor just until they have broken down into a slush. Then quickly get this back into your container and the freezer once again.

The frozen crystals will be much smaller now and, once it has firmed up again, the sorbet will be smooth and ready to eat.

After