I’m working for a kitchen in a hospital and I got the go-ahead from my boss to work on a recipe for a dessert we could sell out front to customers. It’s super simple, just lime juice, maple syrup, and watermelon. I freeze the watermelon in chunks and then either in a couple hours or the next day I would blend everything together until it became sort of like a sorbet, more likely an Italian ice type of thing almost. I add Xanthan gum to prevent it from separating which worked wonders, but now I have a new dilemma I need to work on. I need to figure out how to prevent the dessert from freezing into a solid block of fruity, limey, sweet ice so we can sell it to the customers out front. Are there any ingredients, methods, or anything of the sort I could use or make that would help prevent it from becoming solid? Preferably I’d like to keep it naturally made if possible but if I have to use food safe chemicals or additives I could bring it up with my boss to see what she would think.
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Do you have a separate freezer to keep it in? (That you could adjust the temperature on)– JoeCommented Sep 2 at 23:53
5 Answers
If you want to make sorbet, you need to agitate the mixture as it freezes. The best tool for this is an ice-cream machine. Follow the instructions for the machine, and cross-reference other recipes for the sugar-to-fruit ratio and use of thickeners. Xanthan should work decently, but there are also frozen dessert-specific thickeners; I've had success with Avacream brand. You might want to play with other sugars as well, they can provide better texture.
There are other frozen desserts you could make with these ingredients, but they have slightly different textures. I'll enumerate some options here:
- Granita: spread the mixture in a sheet pan; as it freezes, remove from the freezer every 30 minutes and rake with a fork. The resultant dessert has some icy texture, but the pieces are small enough to enjoy. This requires no special equipment, but is more labor-intensive.
- Shaved ice: you need a special, though relatively cheap, machine for this. Freeze the mix solid in the provided container, and put it in the machine. Spinning blades shred the ice into a snow-like texture. This is traditionally done with plain ice and flavored syrups are added after, but there is no reason you couldn't flavor the base instead.
- Pacojet or Ninja creami: these are two name-brand machines that follow the same principle as a shaved ice maker, but with a much finer texture approaching a traditional sorbet. They are loud, and much more expensive, but can process a variety of frozen ingredients into nicely-textured desserts.
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2Some blenders or a food processor might work if you freeze it in ice cube trays, then grind it up on demand. But you could also just grind up the watermelon on demand and save a step– JoeCommented Sep 2 at 23:52
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I might try this out first, our blender is pretty heavy-duty. I’ll probably get a couple ice cube trays or a large one and just pre-blend the watermelon and lime juice. Thanks!– Chris R.Commented Sep 3 at 15:11
Take this with a grain of salt - I'm not a commercial cook at all.
I think this mix sounds a bit like you are trying to make something like a Granita. Granita is a flavoured simple syrup frozen and ground (e.g. in a gelato machine) or scraped/shaved to make a light ice-crystal structure of varying texture, depending on how you like it. It turns out kind of like a mix between slushie and sorbet. It's super easy to make at home with very basic flavourings - lemon/mint is my favourite.
At domestic freezer temperatures (approx -20 C), a simple syrup won't freeze into a really hard mass, you can scrape the crystals quite easily with a fork, and the crystals will retain shape and not fully fuse together with continued freezing in at least the short term (~48 h, it never lasts longer than that in my household for me to test).
I think you would be best to make a big batch and prepare servings of it "on demand" You could probably put it in a gelato machine and have it keep it at the right texture/temperature, so all you need to do is scoop it out.
If you freeze a liquid like that, it is going to freeze into a solid block, period. But as an alternative to making a sorbet sort of thing as bob1 suggested, you should consider getting an ice shaver and shaving the blocks on demand, resulting in quite a light and fluffy texture. Electric ice shavers are fairly inexpensive, and might offer higher capacity than ice cream/sorbet machines.
Making sorbet without an ice cream maker is possible but tedious. I make a batch of 1-2 litres using a freezer, and it needs beating every hour or two (usually in my stand mixer) once it starts to freeze round the edges. This takes quite a few hours, to the extent that next time I'm going to start by chilling the mixture in the fridge overnight and transfer to the freezer in the morning. Otherwise I end up going to bed when it could really do with another beat, and get lumps of ice. This would only be slower in a commercial size batch
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I could try this. Saw a suggestion saying I could blend the watermelon and freeze it in ice cube trays and then blitz it in the blender once it’s solidified. I might try that and just mid all the ingredients at once. If it doesn’t work I may try other ideas, but I’m trying to avoid a new machine because my boss both doesn’t really have the space here for another machine—much less one dedicated to basically just my dessert—and that’s another thing we’d have to clean. I might get one just to make this at home but I’ll have to abstain from getting a new device. Hopefully this idea works.– Chris R.Commented Sep 3 at 15:50
How about a few spoons of wine? Yes, 40% alcohol does not freeze up to -23°C. But addition a couple of sweet wine spoons may slow down freezing or give not so solid product. Another option - to add carbon dioxide gas. However, for carbonated drinks this only reduces the freezing temperature by a couple of degrees.
