Raspberry mint sorbet

This refreshing ruby-red sorbet will tempt your palate on a hot summer’s night. It serves four but can easily be halved to share with your beloved.

With only one tablespoon of sweetener it’s a guilt free indulgence.

Another plus: it contains only three ingredients and can be made in a couple of minutes in a food processor.

The recipe comes from ‘Clean Bakery’ by Carine Claudepierre. She now lives in New Zealand but was raised in France where her parents managed a candy factory. No wonder she developed a sweet tooth from an early age! Until recently she filled herself up with cookies, candies and muffins every day.

A recent serious health scare forced to change her diet. But rather than give up her passion for baking she tied on her apron, rolled up her sleeves and developed a whole bunch of new recipes which contain no refined sugar and with more wholesome ingredients. That way she can still satisfy her sweet craving, but not too often! Her newly crafted sweet recipes are her escape hatches for satisfying those uncontrollable sweet cravings, but in a healthy way.

I love baking with my granddaughters. But they are well aware that right now white sugar is Public Enemy Number One. So it’s been good to try a new approach and to bake some of the recipes from Clean Bakery

The yummy chocolate mug cake was fun and easy to make. It contained just a small amount of maple syrup as a sweetener.  The almond blueberry breakfast muffins with flaked almonds scattered on top were another favourite.

One of our granddaughters, like so many other children these days, has several food intolerances. So it’s really useful that out of the 80 recipes in the book, 79 are dairy free, 66 are gluten free, 49 are paleo friendly, 50 are vegan, 23 are raw and 34 are nut free.

Another handy part of this book is the lists of “swaps”. So any sweetener can be exchanged with another sweetener from the same category in equal quantity.

This means that you don’t have to fill up your pantry with too many different ingredients.

Unlike Carine, I haven’t cleaned out my whole pantry and thrown out my jars of castor, icing and brown sugar and white flour. And I’m holding on to some of my old recipe books by Alison Holst and the Edmond’s cookbook from which I will continue to bake from: especially the irresistible ginger crunch!

But I’m really enjoying taking a different approach to baking with my granddaughters. And I know their parents will also be happy that I’m making the effort.

Raspberry Mint Sorbet

From Clean Bakery by Carine Claudepierre, Bateman, RRP $49.99

Serves 4

Dairy-free, egg-free, gluten-free, nut-free, paleo, raw, vegan

Raspberries, along with other berries, contain the lowest quantities of sugar per 100 grams — about 4 grams — making them your best friends when you crave something sweet. The combination of raspberry and mint makes this sorbet a super fresh snack for summer or even to help cool down after sport . . . and I love the fact that it can fix my ice-cream craving in a minute.

350 g frozen raspberries (2¾ cups)

1 tablespoon stevia powder or 2 tablespoons honey or maple syrup or agave syrup or brown rice malt syrup

10 fresh mint leaves, washed

Put all the ingredients in a food processor with the ‘S’ blade attachment.

Process for 1–2 minutes or until it forms a sort of icy slurry — called granite in French.

Scoop the mixture out with an ice-cream scoop using the palms of your hand to press the mixture firmly inside the scoop.

Serve in a bowl or glass dish and enjoy immediately.

Tip: As this recipe uses frozen raspberries, refreezing any leftover sorbet is not recommended.

By Lyn Potter. Read more here.