Safely thaw and refreeze sorbet

freezingfrozensorbet

A month ago I made a mango/lime/cilantro sorbet that is delicious. The problem is I put the sorbet into a quart sized container and it's frozen solid (I keep my freezer very cold). Can I safely thaw (or partially thaw) the sorbet and put it into popsicle molds and then refreeze the popsicles? The ingredients are mango, lime juice, cilantro, sugar, and possibly a little water (I can't remember).

The recipe I used was from http://low-cholesterol.food.com/recipe/very-basic-mango-lime-sorbet-224706. The only thing I changed was I added one bunch of cilantro chopped in the food processor with the mango. And I used my ice cream maker.

Ingredients

2 lbs mangoes, chopped (frozen is fine)

1⁄2 cup lime juice (fresh is best)

2⁄3 cup sugar (super-fine is recommended)

1 cup water

Directions

Make simple syrup: Add sugar to water in small saucepan. Stir over medium heat until sugar is fully dissolved. Raise heat and bring syrup to a boil; boil one minute, then remove from heat and allow to cool completely.

Puree thawed mango and lime juice in a food processor.

Stir simple syrup into mango puree. Refrigerate a few hours to be certain puree is cool.

Follow the manufacturer's instructions for your ice cream maker at this point. If you don't have one, pour into a pan and put in freezer; pull out every hour and stir (for 3-4 hours).

Best Answer

Sorbet are typically acidic(from the fruit juices) and contain sugar. Both of these act as preservatives in addition to the extremely cold temperatures that sorbets are kept at. So it is perfectly okay to melt your sorbet ice block. However when you melt the sorbet block, you will want to do it slowly. Fruit/herb flavors are very volatile so if the mixture is over heated, the flavoring will break down and the taste will deteriorate.

When refreezing your mixture, you might want to consider adding a little more sugar into the mixture to prevent it from freezing so hard in the future. Sorbet sugar by concentration is usually around 20-30%. If your sorbet is sweet enough, then you may also add a little tasteless alcohol like vodka to prevent the sorbet from freezing too hard.