Where did sorbet come from?
Some say that it comes from China, known for 5000 years, forgoten and rediscovered 500 years later by Egyptians. Some say that it was created 3000 years ago by Persian and Romans, and that the legendary Emperor Nero set complicated line of runners between Italian cities and high mountains, to bring snow to Roman nobility and royalty, to flavour it with honey and fruits. Some say that in the medieval Arabic world, people drank aromatic icy beverages, called sherbet or sharab, flavoured with cherries, pomegranates, quinces, rose water and orange blossom. Some say that one of the earliest forerunners of modern ice cream was a sherbet recipe brought to Italy from China by Marco Polo.
But everybody agrees that there was the Italians, and especially the Sicilians, who transformed it in a tasteful and elegant product, generally called sorbetto, with a lot of variations like Sicilian granita, Roman grattachecca, cremolata or the French sorbet.
CremoLinea Fruit Experience
Water, sugar and fruits: these are the ingredients that make up the structure of the sorbet, usually containing at least 30% of fruit and at most 25% of sugar. A fine-grained ice dessert, which needs to incorporate a lot of air. In the absence of proteins and fats of milk, which adjust creaminess and overrun in gelato, in the sorbet it’s only the sugar solution that incorporates air, therefore it needs some help in order to obtain a creamier, less icy gelato.
Cremolinea developed special range of bases created to offer great creaminess to fruit ice cream and to assure, at the same time, the freshness, the flavor and authenticity.
Besides the classic bases for sorbets, usually used in cold processing by direct method, available in different concentrations, we created a new one, which was formulated to help the gelato masters by saving time and achieving superior quality: Technofruit Base the base for stabilizing sugar syrup.
Technofruit Base is designed to stabilize the sugar syrup used in sorbet preparation, offering the possibility to prepare a “neutral base” for sorbets, by the same principle and hot process like the milk base for gelato.
Thus, the shelf life of the syrup and of the final product is longer, because the pasteurization process eliminates any hazard of bacteria growth, and having this stabilized syrup prepared saves time, it needs only to add the fruits and to freeze the mix.
Besides, the sorbet structure will be softer, because the sugar is perfectly dissolved and the the bound between sugars and water is totally developed.
The procedure to formulate a recipe is similar to the cold direct method, considering the sugars will be brought to the formula by the fruits and by the sugar syrup. Using the most common fruits (with 8-12% sugars content), a perfectly balanced sorbet with 50% fruit content can be obtained with a very simple recipe: 50% fruit + 50% stabilized sugar syrup. It is also possible to play with different fruit contents – beginning from 25% – and with one of Cremolinea fruit pastes which will bring the rest of fruit amount, as well as an enhanced taste and fuller mouthfeel.
And where to?
Perfect for a slightly lighter alternative to ice cream and gelato, sorbets really embrace the bounty of fresh fruits in the season and draw the consumers with its promises of cooling and wellbeing during the hot summer days.
Besides the richness in fruits, which provides vitamins and minerals, sorbets are poised to become a hot marketing item, because there are a lot of supplemental claims that suits them perfect: no fat content, nor dairy products, making them suitable for health-conscious consumers, as well for lactose intolerants and for vegetarians or vegans.
The sorbet is a decidedly pleasant companion to the for the most torrid hours but to be equally enjoyed in winter, as a fresh and regenerating meal ending after a sumptuous dinner.
