Recipe of the week: Watermelon Sorbet

In case you hadn’t noticed, we really love Jeni’s ice cream and couldn’t be more delighted for our August cooking column‘s top pick, Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home. The following video and this week’s recipe are great reasons to fall in love with Jeni’s, too:

Without further ado, Jeni brings us the perfect summer treat:

Watermelon Lemonade Sorbet

Fragrant and round with a tart lemony bite, and the flavor and texture of ripe watermelon.

I’ll never forget the day Adam Welly at Wayward Seed Farm cut open his favorite variety of watermelon for me to try. A bunch of folks from our kitchen and I were at the farm one Saturday, picking huckleberries for a winter jam to use in one of our holiday flavors. As Adam hacked into the sun-bloated melon with a large soil-crusted machete, its juice streamed out everywhere. The warm melon tasted of sunburned cheeks, warm sidewalks, and sunshine and all the summertime memories of my childhood. We made watermelon lemonade sorbet as soon as we returned to the kitchen.

This sorbet is perfect on a hot summer day, and we like to toss a few black watermelon seeds back in for fun.

Makes about 1 quart

• 1 small to medium watermelon, preferably with black seeds
• 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (from 2 to 3 lemons)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup

Pairs well with: Drinks! Sparkling rosé or Prosecco in a watermelon sangria. Or, for a watermelon cocktail: a few scoops of sorbet in a tall glass with a shot of Grey Goose vodka and a couple of drops of rose water.

PREP

Cut enough watermelon flesh into 2-inch cubes to make about 4 cups. Remove the seeds (reserve a few black ones to add to the sorbet if you want). Puree the melon in a food processor. Measure out 2 1/2 cups of puree and transfer to a medium bowl. Reserve the rest of the watermelon for another use. Measure out the remaining ingredients.

Fill a large bowl with ice and water.

COOK

Combine the lemon juice, sugar, and corn syrup in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Remove from the heat.

CHILL

Whisk the lemon syrup into the pureed watermelon. Pour the mixture into a 1-gallon Ziploc freezer bag and submerge the sealed bag in the ice bath. Let stand, adding more ice as necessary, until cold, about 30 minutes.

FREEZE

Pour the sorbet base into the frozen canister and spin just until it is the consistency of very softly whipped cream.

Pack the sorbet into a storage container, tossing in a few black watermelon seeds if you’ve got them. Press a sheet of parchment directly against the surface, and seal with an airtight lid. Freeze in the coldest part of your freezer until firm, at least 4 hours.

Excerpted from Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home by Jeni Britton Bauer © 2011. Excerpted by permission of Artisan Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. Read our review of this book.