Wild Strawberry Sorbet

I picked another pound of my wild strawberries yesterday and decided to have a go at making sorbet. I had a recipe in my Marguerite Patten cookery book.

A quick trip into Duns this morning as it said I needed gelatine, which I found at the Co-op. I also nipped into Youngmans and came out loaded with two Mason Cash pie dishes (30 oz and 60 oz) - getting ready for the gooseberry harvest, an egg poacher (one that you hang over the side of your saucepan) and some pastry cutters. I had been looking on the web for these items but had been totally unsuccessful finding one site that sold them all, and therefore the postage would make them far too expensive.

After lunch I started on the sorbet.

Stew the strawberries slowly in half a pint of water.
Press through a sieve - this took longer than anticipated so the puree was not very hot when I finished so I heated it up again...
Add 3 oz sugar and one teaspoon of gelatine to hot puree (see above) and stir until dissolved.
Transfer to container and place in freezer.

Stiffly beat two or three egg whites.
I discovered I was not very good at separating the yolks, so three eggs resulted in two egg whites and an omelette mix for tea tonight, but they were large eggs and all I had. Paul then informed me we have an egg separator gadget somewhere... Much beating of eggs took place, Paul and I taking turns as we were just using a hand whisk (hint: one of those electric whisk/blitzer gadgets might be useful). Eventually they formed quite a satisfying voluminous white frothy texture - not quite up to meringue standard but not bad.

When the puree mixture begins to stiffen (this took quite a long time and I may still have been premature) fold into the egg whites and return to the freezer.

Well, time will tell if it works, but it does look a very pretty pink colour and has cost virtually nothing.