Using Homegrown Fruits to Make Cool Treats for Summer Days
17.08.2023 - 16:19
/ treehugger.com
/ Elizabeth Waddington
When the weather is warm, it is great to be able to reach into the freezer and enjoy a healthy treat. Better yet, popsicles, sorbets, or fruity ice creams can all be made using produce you have grown yourself in your garden. Hyper-local and packaging-free, making your own is the eco-friendliest way to go.
Here are some ideas to help you use homegrown fruits to make cool treats for summer days:
One of the easiest ways to make use of fresh produce is simply to make and freeze a fruit puree or fruit syrup in a mold to make popsicles that your family can enjoy.
Sweeter fruits can be blended and frozen without additional sweetening. But with tarter fruits, like some citrus fruits or berries, you might like to add the sweetener of your choice before you pour the mix into molds and place these in the freezer.
A more grown-up version of popsicles is to make homemade sorbets. You do not need an ice-cream maker or any special equipment to do so. Using just fresh fruit juices can create quite a hard sorbet, but adding alcohol, honey, or corn syrup can lower the freezing point and make for a softer sorbet.
The key thing to remember when making a sorbet is that you will need to freeze for a while, then use a fork to break up the ice crystals a few times—returning it to the freezer each time and stopping when it is firm, but you can scoop it easily.
I like to make raspberry sorbet, for example, which pairs very nicely with chocolate desserts.
Similar to a sorbet, but typically a little more granular and crystalline in texture, a granita is a semi-frozen desert that could also be great on a hot day. This, too, is something that you can make yourself at home without special equipment.
Usually, it combines homegrown fruits with a