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Awww…it’s cute!!  Well as Tony once said, we’re in the cute business.  This is the Sorbet Trio, dreamed up by Jack Yoss, and realized by me.  Chef wanted to do this dish for this past New Years Eve, and they we kept it on the menu as the light choice.  At first, before I got Gelatoo-D2, we were buying all of our sorbets (and ice creams) from Great Northwest Ice Cream in Vancouver, WA.  Now that we make our own, I use the simplest of techniques for sorbet.  Mix 2 parts fruit puree to 1 part simple syrup.  As a general rule this works for every puree I’ve tried.  Pictured above is pear, strawberry, and marionberry.  I adjust sweetness to taste by adding water, add a little lemon juice, and spin it.  An easy test for proper ingredient porportions in the “egg test.”  I don’t know why this works, but it does.  I believe it is somehow measuring brix.  Anyway, after you mix together all your ingredients, gently place a whole egg in its shell into the sorbet base. If the egg floats so that only a dime-size portion of the shell is above the liquid, he has achieved the right balance of ingredients. If it sinks lower, the mixture requires more sugar. If more of the shell is visible, the recipe needs more water.  Like I said, I’m not sure of the science here, but I’m okay with that.  So you’ve got your sorbet, how about those adorable little cones?  Those are made from a simple tuile cookie recipe that I stole years ago from Charlie Trotter’s Desserts.  The batter is spread into a flat cone shape, sprinkled with chopped hazelnuts, baked, then molded while still warm in a pastry tip.  In an airtight container, they last forever.  I rotate the flavors of “broth” that the sorbet’s sit in, it’s basically a sweetened fruit puree and a complimentary wine that is brought to a simmer and then chilled.  This week it’s Raspberry-Rose.  I use little stray pieces of pate fruit (gelee) to garnish the soup.  Here’s some recipes:

Basic Sorbet Base 

2 cups fruit puree

1 cup water

1 cup sugar

juice of half a lemon

1.  Combine the sugar and water in a saucepot and bring to a boil.  Chill completely.

2.  Mix the 2 cups puree with 1 cup of the simple syrup.  Add the lemon juice.  Taste it.  Is it too sweet? Add water.

3.  Perform the egg test as described above…go ahead…it works.

Tuile Cookie Batter

6 tblsp (3 oz) butter

pulp from 1 vanilla bean

3 egg whites

1/2 cup plus 1 tblsp sugar

1/2 cup plus 1 tblsp a.p. flour

for chocolate use:

1/4 cup plus 1 tblsp a.p. flour

1/4 cup cocoa

1. Melt butter with vanilla pulp and cool to room temp

2. Whip egg whites and sugar to soft peaks

3. Sift in flour and mix to combine

4. Store or spread thin and bake @ 350 for 5-7 minutes