Sure Bet!

Grape Sherbet – Desserts – pg. 214, Christabel Cantelope (Mrs. D. C.)

The Dutch Oven doesn’t contain a lot of cool Summer recipes, but there are a few. It’s been a beautiful Summer in Nova Scotia this year and August has been no exception. To beat the Summer heat we whipped up this cool Summer treat compliments of Mrs. Christabel Cantelope (they just don’t make handles like this anymore – a lost art really).

Having never made sherbet before, we were fairly skeptical about this one. First of all, Grape isn’t a flavor you hear much about anymore, you just can’t help associate Grape with things like Crush and Hubba Bubba- right? Secondly the freezing method seemed a little questionable as there is no ice cream machine used in this recipe’s preparation – just a good old fashion freezer (Mrs. Cantelope suggests an electric refrigerator - great tip Mrs. C., we almost used our ice box for this one).

Sherbet almost always contains fruit and differs from a sorbet in that it contains dairy, but is usually lighter than ice cream (ice cream normally contains at least 10% milk fat and often eggs). This recipe uses a combination of milk and cream. The only other ingredients in this recipe are sugar and grape juice. Super simple!

A few tips if you decide to tackle this one. The recipe only calls for two cups of liquid so you best double it to ensure there is plenty of sherbet to share. Be sure to stir your milk/cream and sugar thoroughly ensuring that all the sugar is dissolved (about 5 minutes). A metal loaf pan works well as a container to freeze the mixture in (leaving lots of surface area to scoop the sherbet). It’s important to remember to stir the mixture about every hour while it is freezing, this will ensure a nice creamy consistency (3 times over 3 hours using a small whisk). We then left the sherbet to freeze overnight.



The result was a delicious sweet and refreshing dessert. This recipe was super simple to pull together. With such little effort, it was surprising how creamy and smooth the sherbet was – we kind of expected it to be like a block of ice. Its consistency was much the same as ice cream. This one will be a “sure bet” with kiddies and adults, and one of the great things about this recipe is its versatility - you could easily replace the grape juice with any flavor juice…the possibilities are endless…

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