Chocolate Sorbet

This week is National Chocolate Week, so it seemed to be the prefect time to post this recipe.

I can’t say firmly enough how much you have to make this sorbet, if you are at all a chocolate fan. It is chocolate in its purest form, unadulterated by cream or any other additional flavours. I’m not saying it wouldn’t be good with some orange in it, but first time round it needs to be made straight up.

I was really dubious about making chocolate sorbet. I mean, it sounds like a poor relation of chocolate ice cream. However, I had read a couple of people raving about it, and it does have a lot of chocolate in it, so I thought it couldn’t be too bad. It is also gluten and dairy-free, which is an added bonus. I don’t even have an ice-cream maker, and still believe it is more than worth the effort. I can't remember where I wrote the recipe down from, so apologies for not giving the credit.

Chocolate Sorbet

555 ml water
200g caster sugar
75g cocoa powder (yes really!)
Pinch salt
170g dark chocolate
½ tsp vanilla extract

Whisk 375 ml of water with the sugar, cocoa powder and salt. Bring to the boil, whisking frequently. Boil, while whisking, for 45 seconds.

Remove from the heat and stir in the chocolate until melted, then add the remaining water and vanilla. Leave to cool. Then either use an ice-cream machine according to the instructions, or put in a freezer-proof container and freeze. Every hour or so remove from the freezer and whisk, to ensure there are no crystals. This needs to be done three or four times.

It freezes very solid, so make sure you remove it from the freezer twenty minutes or so before you want to serve it. This was particularly good with orange shortbread biscuits.