Nothing beats homemade, and this Lemon Sherbet takes the cake when it comes to refreshing, sweet summer desserts!
Homemade Sherbet
If you don't have an ice cream maker and have been dying to make homemade ice creams and sherbets - look no further for the solution!
All you need is a food processor and a bread pan - easy peasy!
Ingredients
- Heavy Cream
- Milk
- Lemon Juice
- Lemon Zest
- Sugar
Sugar and fat play important roles when making ice cream or sherbet. You need a decent amount of fat and sugar to lower the freezing point to prevent getting a solid block of ice.
The fat in the heavy cream and sugar will help create a smooth and scoopable texture.
The milk is like the foundation and brings everything together.
My favorite part about this recipe is the zest! It adds soooo much flavor!
The balance of sugar to lemon juice is in the middle in my opinion. It's definitely not super sweet. I love tangy, tart desserts, so it leans more towards the side of tart lemon.
If you prefer desserts sweeter, you may want to add more sugar.
Steps
Start by whisking your sugar and lemon juice together. I used lemon juice I had in the freezer (still freshly squeezed! just left over from another recipe).
You can heat the lemon juice up a bit to help the sugar dissolve.
Once the sugar is dissolved into the lemon juice, you can add the rest of the ingredients.
Once everything is mixed in well just pour it into a gallon-sized zip lock bag. Sounds weird I know - but trust me it's gonna turn into deliciousness soon!
Put the bag on a baking sheet and freeze it. Once frozen break it up into pieces - it'll look like the picture below.
It won't be frozen solid, it'll be bendable so easy to break off into pieces.
Next, put the broken up pieces into a food processor and blend away!
Once you get a smooth velvety texture - you got soft-serve sherbet. If you love soft-serve then you don't even need to continue with the recipe - just enjoy!
But if you're wanting more of a scoopable texture, get a metal bread pan out and transfer the sherbet to it.
Cover with foil, freeze and boom you got sherbet!
Recipe FAQs and Tips
Absolutely! It might be harder, but if you have a blender that is decently wide it should be able to blend things up well.
While I haven't tried making it lactose-free, if I were to try, I would swap the heavy cream for Silk's Dairy Free Heavy Whipping Cream and swap the cow's milk for whatever plant milk you have on hand. The texture and flavor may be different, but let us know if you try it!
More Lemon Inspired Recipes
Lemon Chia Muffins: Packed with heart-healthy fats and fiber from the chia seeds and 100% lemon flavor!
Lemon Chicken Pasta: Perfect for weeknight dinners or meal prepped for workday lunches.
Lemon Pancakes: These fluffy pancakes are made with buttermilk and absolutely melt in your mouth.
Lemon Cucumber Mint Ginger Water: Refreshing and flavorful and 100% not a detox!
Lemon Sherbet
Ingredients
- ⅔ cup lemon juice
- ⅓ cup sugar
- 1 cup milk
- ½ cup heavy cream
- lemon zest
Instructions
- Whisk the sugar and lemon juice together in a bowl until the sugar has dissolved.
- Add in the milk, heavy cream and zest and stir to combine.
- Pour the mixture into a gallon sized bag and squeeze out as much air as possible when closing the bag.
- Place the bag on a metal baking sheet and put it in the freezer for 4-6 hours or until frozen.
- Take the sherbet out of the bag and break the slab up into pieces.
- Put the pieces of frozen sherbet in a food processor and blend until smooth. Enjoy now if you prefer soft-serve! Otherwise, scoop sherbet into a metal bread pan, cover and freeze to solidify it more.
Notes
- Recipe makes 3 small ½ cup servings. I would recommend doubling the recipe if you want bigger serving sizes.
Nutrition
(Nutrition values are calculated by third-party software and an estimate that can vary based on product brands and cooking methods.)
Joan Dean says
What % mf should be used for the milk?
Monica Nedeff says
Hi Joan! Thanks for the question. I wanted to test it to double check before responding, so thank you for your patience but any percent milk fat for the milk is okay! 1% milk works just fine. Of course, using whole milk will produce a creamier, smoother texture but any milk should suffice. Hope you enjoy!
Cindy says
Can you use a glass pan instead of metal?
Monica Nedeff says
You can use glass! The metal just helps the sherbet freeze faster.