Blood plum sorbet

By: Nick Palumbo
From: Gelato Messina
Makes: 1 kg
Photographer: Billy Law

I made this flavour for the first time about five years ago when my fruit and vegetable guy, Bill, had a few trays that he couldn’t sell because they were too ripe. I washed them, removed the stones and then used them in my sorbet, and I was blown away.

Since then, I have tried every year, when blood plums are in season, to reproduce that flavour, and although I get a good result, it’s never as good as it was that first time. I still ask Bill every year where he got those first blood plums from and he just can’t remember. It was just ‘some dude at the fruit market’.

Domestic

Ingredients

Quantity	Ingredient
185g	water
600g	see method for ingredients, (60%), assume 11% sugar (see notes)
170g	sugar
40g	dextrose
5g	stabiliser

Method

Mixing

Put the water and 200 g of blood plum purée in a double boiler over a medium heat.
Put all the powders in a bowl and mix until combined. When the water and plum purée hit 40°C, whisk in the powders and bring the mixture up to 65°C, whisking constantly.
Transfer the mixture to a stainless steel bowl and place in an ice bath; chill to 40°C. Cover tightly with foil and put in the freezer, stirring every 10 minutes or so until the mixture drops to 4°C, then add the remaining 400 g of plum purée and blend well using a stick blender. Place in the fridge and let it age for 4 hours.
Churning

Turn on your gelato maker so it begins the freezing process.
Using a stick blender, blend the mixture for 1 minute, then pour into the gelato maker.
Once the mixture reaches –4°C, scoop out the sorbet and transfer to a pre-cooled stainless steel bowl, cover tightly and immediately place in the freezer.
Serving

The sorbet should be served within 2 to 3 hours after placing it in the freezer, or when it reaches –12°C. If it goes below –15°C or is left in the freezer overnight, the texture will be compromised.

Professional

Ingredients

Quantity	Ingredient
	as above

Method

Mixing

Put the water and 200 g of blood plum purée in a pasteuriser and select low pasteurisation.
Put all the powders in a bowl and dry mix. When the water and plum purée hit 40°C, whisk in the powders; the pasteuriser will take the entire mix to 65°C, then will hold for 30 minutes before switching to cooling phase.
Once the pasteuriser runs its cycle and gets down to 4°C, add the remaining 400 g of plum purée and let the mixture age for 4 hours at 4°C.
Churning

Measure an appropriate amount of mixture into a measuring jug and put in a batch freezer. Within 10 to 12 minutes, your mix should be ready for extraction.
For long-term storage, up to 2 weeks: Put the sorbet in a blast freezer for 30 minutes, then store at –18°C. For short-term storage, 2 to 3 days: Put the sorbet in a storage freezer at –18°C.
Serving

The serving temperature of the sorbet should be around –11°C to –13°C.

Notes

For the blood plum purée, remove the stones from about 10 blood plums (or other plums), then purée the flesh, with the skin on, in a food processor. Do not strain.

Because we don’t have enough water in this recipe to dissolve the powders, we need to heat up 200 g of the blood plum purée with the water. Heating the fruit alters its taste, so we only heat a small amount and keep the rest of the fruit purée fresh.