Recipe: Rhubarb-Lemon Sorbet

So I might have a little bit of an obsession with rhubarb.

I love it in everything — at least all things sweet: muffins and cakes and pies and crumbles and bars and crisps. And luckily, my grandma has an enormous rhubarb plant that just gives and gives. She delivered a big paper bag of stalks to me in June, and I set out on a rhubarb-cooking extravaganza.

In addition to the traditional baked goods, I decided to venture into the new territory of frozen rhubarb desserts. My rhubarb-lemon sorbet and popsicles knocked it out of the park.

For the base, I started with Garrett McCord’s elegant and straightforward recipe on SimplyRecipes. The corn syrup is a great touch to keep everything smooth. This recipe includes orange zest and ginger, but I’d just made some pretty awesome rhubarb-lemon bars and wanted to try that flavor again.

I’ve also discovered that like 90 percent of rhubarb dessert recipes include WAY too much sugar. The entire point of rhubarb is tartness, people!

My recipe didn’t come out as ruby red as McCord’s (seriously, where did he find stalks that dark?!) but it was a lovely rosy pink that matched well with the bright, lightly tart, almost floral flavor.

Rhubarb-Lemon Sorbet
Adapted from Simply Recipes

• 3 1/2 cups of chopped fresh rhubarb stalks
• 2 1/2 cups of water
• 1 cup of sugar
• Lots and lots of lemon zest (at least a few teaspoons)
• The juice of one lemon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 Tbsp of corn syrup

1. Cook the rhubarb, water, sugar, zest, juice and salt in a medium pot over medium-high heat until boiling. Reduce heat and simmer on low for 5-8 minutes, until the rhubarb is good and mushy. Remove from heat and cool 10 minutes.
2. Blend with an immersion blender (worth the investment if you’re an ice cream/sorbet maker at all!) or transfer to a blender with a good seal and puree until smooth.
3. Stir in corn syrup.
4. Chill for several hours or overnight, then process in your ice cream maker. It’ll be soft, but the texture firms up while staying nice and scoopable after a bit in the freezer.
5. OR, if you’d rather, skip the chilling and pour the mixture into popsicle molds and freeze. It will take quite a while (overnight or more) for them to set up, so be patient.

Conveniently, this same basic base seems to work pretty well for a lot of different fruit sorbets! I made it with apricots as well — exact same method, but more like a ½ cup of sugar. Deeeelicious.