Apricot Sorbet: A Healthy, Non-fat, Low-Sugar Treat
A couple of weeks ago a friend posted on Facebook an SOS to come and help pick the massive amounts of apricots her trees were producing. I couldn’t resist, although it can be a bit scary reaching and leaning from a tall ladder.
Apricots bring back a lot of good memories for me of the prolific apricot tree in the backyard of my late sister, Christi Nash. She always invited me and my kids to pick apricots when they were young. I usually made them into fruit leather, a favorite of my kids. Here’s that recipe.
But this time I made several batches of fruit sorbet. Since we have diabetes in our family, I use a non-sugar sweetener. But this recipe also is fine with sugar. My husband suggested adding a cup of Greek yogurt, which adds protein and makes it seem more “ice creamy.”
Apricots are like the zucchini of the fruit world. When they are so prolific, people tend to take them for granted. But I love their sweet mellow flavor. They are also so easy to process. Their skin isn’t that fuzzy, so it doesn’t need peeling like peaches do. You just open up the fruit and the pit falls right out. So much easier to deal with than pears or peaches. But, this is also a great recipe for peaches, or frozen strawberries, partially thawed.
Processing in an ice cream maker makes the sorbet more creamy. If you don’t have one, just freeze the mixture. The texture will be more icy.
About the color: the apricots turn pumpkin-colored during processing, I’m guessing because of oxidation. I’ve tried using a bit of lemon juice to keep the yellow color, but it didn’t seem to help. So just enjoy the flavor and don’t fret over the color.
APRICOT SORBET
1 cup Greek yogurt
About 6 cups washed, pitted apricots, coarsely chopped
1 cup non-sugar sweetener (I use Splenda), or to taste (You can also use 1 cup of sugar if you prefer)
Blend all the ingredients together well in the blender, until smooth. If you have an ice cream machine, pour the puree into the machine and freeze according to manufacturer’s directions. If you don’t, freeze in individual cup-size containers or one large container to for scooping.