Recipe: Fresh Coconut & Cachaça Sorbet

Spent the past few days enjoying a relatively mellow Memorial Day weekend, basking in a fair share of parental adulation.

Many caipirinhas were served Sunday. Well... Gringorinhas, I call them. No limes at the ready. Only lime juice in those fruit-shaped squeezy bottles. Hey... Shaddup. "You go to war with the army you have." They were a hit nevertheless.

In any event, plenty of kin-wraught destruction all around us the following morning.

Checking in on the cachaçasphere, I offer another dessert recipe, this time brought to us by the Ceramic Canvas.

I’d never written a sorbet recipe before. But after a few tweaks (and trials), I think the resulting recipe strikes a good balance. The sorbet is light, refreshing and not too sweet. No one will be able to name the hit of cachaça - they’ll just notice something different that they can’t quite put their finger on.

The recipe looks quite involved, but the photos yield high confidence that the effort is oh-so-worth it.

Here it is, again, courtesy of the Ceramic Canvas:

This sorbet contains fresh shredded coconuts. Biting into the coconuts releases an extra hit of the natural, milky coconut flavor into the sorbet. If you prefer a more tradition sorbet without fruit just strain the shredded coconut out of the base after the steeping process. If you strain out the coconut, I recommend using a cheesecloth to squeeze out as much of the coconut juice as possible into the base before adding the cachaça and lime juice.

• 2 coconuts (apprx. 2 lbs each - see yield notes below)
• 1 cup water
• 1 gelatin pack
• ¾ cup sugar
• ¼ cup syrup
• 1.5 oz cachaça
• ½ tsp lime juice

Using nail and hammer punch three holes in each coconut to drain them of their juice (should yield about 1 cup per coconut). After ‘juicing’ the coconuts split one open to expose the inner flesh. Carefully carve out the flesh in chunks. Using a coarse grater, shred the flesh of one coconut (should yield about 2 cups in shredded coconut).  Set juice and shredded coconut aside. 

Mix milk, water, gelatin in med saucepan and let stand until gelatin has dissolved (about 5 minutes). Add sugar, syrup and ¾ cup of the shredded coconut. Bring mixture to a boil just to dissolve the sugar. Stir, take off heat and let coconut steep, covered, for 25 minutes.

Stir in Cachaça and lime juice. After the mixture has completely cooled, freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instruction.

Meanwhile, dry toast the remaining cup of shredded coconut in a nonstick pan over medium heat, stirring periodically until the flakes are golden brown (about 7 minutes).

Yield Notes: One 2 lb coconut yields about 1cup liquid & 2 cups shredded coconut

Comments

[Eric T.]

Wow, that sounds delicious. Complicated, but delicious.

[KC]

What the fuck is the syrup in this recipe? Is it simple syrup? Is it coconut syrup? Is it a flavored syrup with alcohol?

[Phil]

KC... I think the syrup would probably be corn syrup.