Champagne Wishes and Pineapple Dreams

Pineapple sorbet gets boozed up.

I remember the first ice cream maker I bought was a dinky Panasonic BH-941P. It ran on two lithium batteries and made about 2 cups of ice cream per batch. It was slow and you had to freeze the whole machine in the freezer as it turned the mixture. I did not have much success with it, so when my friend bought me a Cuisinart ice cream maker for my birthday this year, I envision myself making bathtubs of ice cream. That was not the case. I had failures, after failures, after failures. One probable cause (well, maybe the biggest one) was that I was making ice cream in the middle of the night, like at 12am or 1am. Those are dangerous culinary hours for my brain. I'm either half asleep or insanely awake and filled with "brilliant" ideas. Who needs directions! Ice cream bowl need to be freeze for at least 24hrs? Blah! 12hrs is enough! Oh, it can only hold 4 cups and not 4.5 cups of content? So what! Lets add mint leaves into green tea ice cream! Who cares if it taste like green toothpaste. *Sigh* I might have not cared when I was making it, but I sure as hell did when I woke up the next morning. One flavor I tried in vain on making again and again was cantaloupe.


Cantaloupe Ice Cream TAKE 1
If your ice ream maker states it could only hold up to 4 cups of liquid, don't try to be a smartass and sneak in 1/2 cup more.


Cantaloupe Ice Cream TAKE 2
Always freeze your ice cream maker bowl as directed. Soupy ice cream is not attractive nor is it tasty.

I needed to get serious. No more putting my own special touches on ice cream recipes when I haven't even master the basic yet, and NO MORE LATE NIGHT ICE CREAM MAKING. I needed help too, and David Lebovitz's "The Perfect Scoop" came to my rescue. From custard to non-custard based ice creams, to granitas and sorbets, The Perfect Scoop does a great job at covering basic flavors and adventurous ones as well. Pages and pages of recipes like Aztec Hot Chocolate Ice Cream, Lemon Speculoos Ice Cream, Saffron Ice Cream, and even Rice Gelato. Yet, the one that really got my attention was Pineapple Champagne Sorbet. I love everything and anything that has pineapple flavoring.


The texture was light, but not the flavor.


The book also suggest serving it in goblets with a splash of bubbly.

Did it turn out to be the perfect scoop? Not exactly. It was pretty close, and with all the ice cream failures I've been having, almost definitely did count. The only problem was the consistency. It had an airy texture to it. Maybe that's how it's suppose to be? Not sure, but it was good none the less. It tasted like I was biting into a pineapple...a very fluffy one.



Pineapple Champagne Sorbet
(From David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop)

Ingredients:
2 cups/500 ml puree of pineapple, peeled and cored (about 1/2 of a pineapple)
6 tbps/75 g of sugar
1/2 cup/125 ml of Champagnes or sparkling wine

Directions:
Cut the pineapple into chunks and puree in a blender with the sugar until smooth.

Stir in the Champagne.

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