‘The Perfect Scoop’ Tangerine Sorbet

One of our favorite recipes in a book we love, David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop, this easy-to-make sorbet has incredible purity of flavor. Use the best mandarins you can find — organic, if possible — during their season, in winter. Lebovitz’s original recipe calls for 3 cups of tangerine juice, which he estimates is from about 12 to 15 tangerines. We’ve made this twice and got a smaller yield, finding that 15 to 20 juicy tangerines yielded 2 cups. We adjusted down the sugar in the original recipe, and still got the same 1-quart/1-liter volume of sorbet the original recipe anticipates.

READ: Cookbooks We Love: David Lebovitz’s ‘The Perfect Scoop’ is the only ice cream book you’ll ever need

Makes about 1 quart (about 1 liter).

Ingredients

1 tangerine, preferably unsprayed

2 cups (500ml) freshly squeezed tangerine juice (from 12 to 20 tangerines, depending on size and juiciness)

1/2 cup (100g) sugar

Instructions

1. Zest the tangerine into a small, nonreactive saucepan. Add ½ cup (125ml) of the tangerine juice and the sugar. Warm over low heat until the sugar is dissolved, then stir the syrup into the remaining 1 ½ cups tangerine juice in a medium bowl.

2. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

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