Watermelon sherbet スイカのシャーベット

We recently got a very good “seedless-mini” watermelon. Although this was a mini-watermelon, there was still a lot of it. We finished about half but time was passing and we were afraid it would go bad. So we came up with the idea of maybe preserving it a bit by somehow freezing it. We consulted a few recipes and decided on making watermelon sherbet (picture #1). It appears, the essence of the recipes is to freeze individual small chunks of watermelon placed far enough apart so they do not touch each other (picture #2). The frozen watermelon is pureed in a food processor/blender along with a liquid sweetner such as simple syrup until it forms a slush/sherbet. Some recipes call for adding lemon juice which we did not do. In any case we winged it and, with some difficulty, (read: considerable difficulty) made sherbet (#1). (After some consideration maybe this process would have gone better if the frozen pieces had been considerably smaller. We’ll try that next time.) The resulting sherbet was not as smooth as we hoped and was sort of a hybrid between granita and sherbet. After it was completely frozen, the only way we could get it out of the container was to scrape the surface like you would for granita (picture #3). As a result it required a bit of effort to put together a serving for desert. Nonetheless it was a very cool refreshing dish. The taste of watermelon came through strongly. Above all else we were able to finish the watermelon before it went bad.

We did not follow any particular recipe but got the general idea and winged it. We used about half a mini-watermelon (x2 of what is seen in picture #2).

Ingredients:
About 4 cups of watermelon, cut into small chunks (picture #2).
1/4 cup of simple syrup (equal amount of sugar and water)
Additional hot water as needed.

Directions:
Freeze the watermelon chunks arranged on a parchment paper lined baking pan so that the watermelon chunks do not freeze together (#2 again). (The process may go better than it did for us this time if the frozen chuncks are considerably smaller than those shown in the picture.) Add the frozen watermelon chunks and the syrup to a blender. Puree until smooth. (We did this in two batches using the Vitamix blender and this was a difficult procedure. We had to add hot water several times and use the “plunger” that comes with the Vitamix to push down the unblended watermelon chunks so they could be pureed). After some struggle, we accomplished a “sherbet-like” consistency. (We tasted it and it was nice smooth and sweet). (After some thought maybe the process would have gone better if the frozen pieces were considerably smaller. We’ll try that next time.) We placed the it in the plastic container in the freezer (picture #3).

We had to scrape of the surface like granita to serve (picture #3) since it was rather solidly frozen.

So, this was partial success but we did not waste good watermelon and it was a quite refreshing summer dessert if not quite a sherbet in consistency.