Berry Merlot Sorbet . . . with Citrus-Shortbread Cookies

They say that the Benedictine monk, Dom Perignon, compared tasting a particular wine to "tasting the stars!" Whether he ever really said that, though, seems to be up for debate. But unsubstantiated or not, that's the very phrase I remembered when the first tiny spoonful of this lusciously icy, pungently sweet sorbet hit my tongue. That may sound like corny hyperbole, but I wouldn't make something that corny up. I swear.

Now, given the typical choice between a petite scoop of premium ice cream and one of sorbet, I've historically been more likely to select the former.

That, however, was until this week when I made my first homemade sorbet. (Ice cream, I'm sorry. It's been fun, but I've found a new friend.)

There simply aren't enough adjectives to describe the glorious flavors in this recipe. Have you ever before had a reason to simmer raspberries, blueberries, orange and lemon slices, together with a split vanilla bean, sugar, and a fragrant cinnamon stick? No? Well, neither had I. Add into that concoction a generous splash of Merlot and a modest splash of Chambord, and the result is truly cosmic.

About the recipes . . .

Adapted from a recipe in pastry chef Sherry Yard's sumptuous book, The Secrets of Baking, this sorbet is an experience in itself. One might rightly say it's divine. And since divinity shouldn't have to travel alone, we're serving it up alongside citrus-shortbread moons and stars.

What with the intense sweet-tartness of the sorbet, these uncomplicated cookies provide a nice counterpoint. They come to us via Chef Todd English's book, The Olives Dessert Table.

The sorbet, which requires making a sauce/syrup first, does take some time but it's worth the wait. And I was pretty pleased with the shortbread recipe, too. The dough is extremely cooperative and easy to handle, considering it's rolled out and then cut with cookie cutters--no heroics or profanity required (you know what I'm talkin' about).

I know it's still March, but before I shut-up I just have to tell you: This combo virtually shrieks summertime. Shrieks it!



Berry Merlot Sorbet, with Citrus Shortbread Cookies

(For a printable copy of these recipes, click here!)

To make the sorbet, begin by preparing the berry sauce. The sauce recipe should yield up to about one quart (four cups). You'll need half of that to prepare one batch of the sorbet. The extra sauce can be stored for future use.

Sauce Ingredients:

1 and 1/2 lbs. fresh, or 20 oz. frozen, berries (I used half frozen raspberries and half frozen blueberries; Sherry Yard's original recipe calls for all blackberries.)
1 orange, peeled and sliced
1 lemon, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup, plus 2 Tbsp., granulated sugar (Just use 1/2 cup if you're using frozen berries, per Sherry Yard.)
1/2 vanilla bean, split and scraped (I used a whole bean and all of its seeds.)
2 cups Merlot wine (I used Charles Shaw Merlot, from Trader Joe's--only about $4 a bottle!)
1/2 cup water
1 three-inch cinnamon stick
3 Tbsp. Chambord (raspberry flavored liqueur)
1 pinch of salt (less than 1/8 tsp.)

Bring the berries, orange, lemon, sugar, vanilla bean and seeds, Merlot, and water to a boil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Microwave the cinnamon stick on high for 10 seconds, or heat it up in a small pan until fragrant; add it to the sauce. Reduce the heat to low, and simmer the sauce for 10 minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat, cover it with plastic wrap, and let it steep for 30 minutes; this allows the flavors to infuse.

Pour the mixture through a fine mesh sieve and press out the juices into a medium-sized bowl. (Don't let the fruit get into the juice, and don't puree the mixture either. Sherry Yard notes that doing so will make the sauce cloudy.)


Place the bowl of juices over another larger bowl filled with ice, and let it cool completely.


Stir in the Chambord and the salt.


This sauce can be used immediately, or it can be refrigerated in an airtight container and kept for up to 3 days. Frozen, it will last for 3 months.

To prepare the sorbet:

2 cups of warm berry Merlot sauce
2 Tbsp. fresh orange juice
2 Tbsp. light corn syrup
1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice (The original recipe says to use lime juice, but I used lemon instead.)
2 Tbsp. granulated sugar
1 pinch of salt (less than 1/8 tsp.)

Whisk together all of the above ingredients in a large bowl. This is the base for the sorbet.

Pour the sorbet base into an ice cream maker and churn the mixture according to the manufacturer's directions.

When finished, the sorbet will be quite soft and not scoopable. Pack it into a freezer container to let it firm up for at least 4 hours before serving. (Mine, in fact, was still quite liquidy after churning; there is no way it could have been scooped or served at that point. It firmed up well in the freezer, though. I froze it overnight.) The prepared sorbet can be kept, well covered, in the freezer for up to 3 months.


Citrus Shortbread Cookies

This recipe will yield about 2 to 3 dozen cookies, depending upon their size.

1/3 cup confectioners' sugar
zest of 1 lemon, chopped
zest of 1 orange, chopped
1/4 lb. of unsalted butter at room temperature (1 stick)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup, plus 2 Tbsp., All Purpose flour (I used bleached)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

In the bowl of your mixer, using the paddle attachment, mix together the sugar and the zests for 3 to 5 minutes.


Add in the butter and mix until creamed. Scrape down the bowl and the paddle, then add in the vanilla extract.


Mix just to combine. Add in the flour and salt, and again mix just until combined.


Gather up the dough and shape it into a round disk. (You do not need to chill it.)


On a floured surface, roll the dough out to a thickness of 1/4". (The book says to roll the dough to 1/8" inch, but I wanted my cookies to be slightly thicker and not completely crispy. If you want them thin and crisp, go with 1/8".) Dust off any excess flour, and cut the cookies into shapes using flour dusted cookie cutters.

Using a wide spatula, transfer the cookies onto your lined cookie sheet. Bake them just until the edges start to brown, about 10 to 15 minutes. Let them cool on the sheet.


Recipe Full Disclosure!
The sorbet recipe has been adapted from two recipes in Sherry Yard's book, The Secrets of Baking, 2003, Houghton Mifflin. The first one, for blackberry-Merlot sauce, is on page 285. The second one, for blackberry sorbet, appears on page 297; it incorporates the sauce as one ingredient. My main alteration included substituting a combination of raspberries and blueberries for the blackberries. The citrus shortbread recipe comes from the book, The Olives Dessert Table, by Todd English, Paige Retus, and Sally Sampson (Simon & Schuster, 2000). I didn't alter that recipe, but adhered to the original.


(If you'd like to comment on this post, or to read any existing comments, click on the purple COMMENTS below!)

Not Just a Tart . . . She's a Raspberry Honey Mascarpone Tart!

Until one frosty morning last week, I had never purchased it. It's a bit out of my usual grocery price range, and a girl has to draw the line somewhere. Start buying mascarpone cheese on a regular basis and before you know it you're dipping into your kid's piggy bank for spare change. It's a slippery slope. But you can't wait forever to procure interesting ingredients, especially if you're looking to expand your baking and pastry repertoire. Expenditure comes with the territory.

And so, with the temporary mindset of a woman in possession of a much fatter wallet, I tossed the hefty little container in my shopping cart and foraged on. I wandered down the baking aisle. Enticing items beckoned their way into my basket . . . locally produced pastry flour, natural demarara cane sugar, imported instant yeast. All overpriced, but I bought them anyway.

Once at home, I tucked my stash away like a squirrel who'd been ferreting acorns. Except for the mascarpone cheese, that is. I had plans for the mascarpone cheese.

About those plans . . .

This recipe hails from A Passion for Desserts by pastry chef Emily Luchetti, a beautiful book. The only alteration I made included the addition of a tiny bit of Chambord, which is a sweet raspberry liqueur, to the raspberry sauce. And, since I didn't have several small individual tart pans, I used just two 8" tart pans instead. I also reworded the instructions to some extent.

You'll love this simple tart. The filling is luscious, with perfectly balanced flavor. The pastry is buttery and flaky, but firm enough to hold up its end of the tart bargain, and the raspberry sauce is like summertime on your tongue. You can't go wrong.


Raspberry Honey Mascarpone Tart
Makes either two 8" round tarts, or four 4" tarts.

(For a printable version of this recipe, click here!)

For the tart shell dough:
1 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp. granulated sugar
pinch of salt
10 Tbsp. (5 oz.) cold unsalted butter, cut into chunks
2 Tbsp. heavy cream
1 large egg

Combine all ingredients except cream and egg in a large bowl. Using two knives or a hand-held pastry blender, cut in the butter until it's the size of small peas. Whisk the cream and egg together in a small bowl. Pour that into the dry ingredients and stir with a fork until the dough comes together. (You can also assemble this dough in a food processor, but if you do that just be very careful not to over-process it, pulsing only as much as necessary for the dough to cohere.)

Dump the dough out of the bowl onto a sheet of plastic wrap. Shape it into a 5 to 6 inch disk, wrap it well, and refrigerate it for at least half an hour.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

When you're ready to roll the dough out, lightly flour your work surface. Divide the dough as needed to fit your tart pans. (Note from Jane: I divided it evenly in two for my 8" pans, and there was no dough leftover. I rolled out two circles about 10" in circumference. It was about 1/8" thick all over. For very small tarts the dough should be rolled a bit thinner.)

Roll out your dough, then lift it carefully and place it over your tart pans, pressing the dough gently against the sides. Trim off any excess dough cleanly at the top rim.

Cut out parchment circles--you'll need one for each pan--that are at least three inches larger than the tart pans themselves. Place the parchment circles in the pans, and fill them with weights (I used dry beans).

Place the weight-filled pans onto a cookie sheet and bake them in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes, just until the top edges start to turn golden brown but don't remove them from the oven yet. At that point, grasp the excess parchment above the pan rim, and using the paper as a handle, slowly lift the beans in the paper circles out of the tart shells and set them aside. Continue baking the empty tart shells for about ten more minutes so the bottom crust can brown as well.

Remove them from the oven and let the tart shells cool in their pans, on a rack. They must be completely cooled before you fill them.

For the mascarpone honey cream filling:

8 oz. (1 cup) mascarpone cheese
1 Tbsp. plus 1 tsp. good-quality honey (I used wildflower honey)
2 Tbsp. granulated sugar
1 pinch salt
3 Tbsp. heavy cream

In a medium bowl, whisk together all ingredients until thick. Keep this mixture covered and chilled until you're ready to spread it in your tart shells.

For the raspberry sauce:

One 12 oz. bag of frozen whole raspberries, no sugar added, defrosted
2 Tbsp. granulated sugar
1 Tbsp. raspberry liqueur, like Chambord (optional)

Puree the defrosted raspberries completely in a food processor. Strain the puree over a bowl with a fine mesh sieve to remove the seeds. Discard the seeds. Stir in the sugar, and the liqueur if using. Taste for sweetness and add more sugar if needed. Keep this chilled until you're ready to serve the tarts.

To assemble the tarts:

You'll need the baked tart shells, the chilled mascarpone cream, the raspberry sauce, and at least 6 oz. of whole, fresh raspberries.

Spoon the cold mascarpone mixture evenly into each tart shell, one by one, and smooth it out, filling the shell to the edges. Serve each small individual tart, or each slice of tart, with a few fresh raspberries, and use the sauce either as a garnish around the tart on the plate, or drizzled over the tart. (Note from Jane: I put the sauce in a food-safe plastic squirt bottle and used that to easily make the little dotted design on the plates. The sauce is so delicious, however, you might find that your diners request more of it while they're munching on this dessert, so you may want to keep any extra sauce close at hand!)


(If you'd like to comment on this post, or to read any existing comments, click on the purple COMMENTS below!)