Basil-Peach Sorbet Recipe – A Sweet Summer Treat

This Basil- Peach Sorbet Recipe is creamy and tangy with a slight herbaceous note – the perfect combo for a sweet summer treat!  This recipe makes 1 ½ quarts of sorbet. Plenty for an after dinner treat with family and friends or enough to share between the neighbourhood kid crew!  Make in the morning and it will be ready for the afternoon. A perfect treat for enjoying in the summer sun!

Basil-Peach Sorbet Recipe

Nothing says summer like ice cream but ice cream really has no nutritional value at all.  It is full of sugar, cream and usually candy in my house. I am a peanut butter chocolate ice cream nut and it has to be the kind with peanut butter cup pieces in it or forget about it!

But ice cream is not the only summer worthy treat to be served in a cone.  Sorbet and Sherbet are in my opinion the less often thought about brother and sister to ice cream and pack a huge flavour punch.  Fresh fruit like peaches, raspberries, lemon, lime, mango… the possibilities are really endless. You can make a new sorbet flavour for every fruit season in the summer!

What is the difference between Sorbet and Sherbet?

Sorbet is made with only two ingredients typically, fruit and sugar.  Where as Sherbet includes a dairy component that makes it creamer than a sorbet.  According to the FDA standars a sherbet must include 1-2% milk fat whereas ice cream needs to have more than 10%.  Anything in between is considered a frozen dairy dessert.

Fun Fact – Sherbet can also be spelled as Sherbert but the r is silent.

To be honest until I started researching for this post I 100% thought it was pronounced “Shurburt” to include the second R.  Goes to show things may not always be as they seem!

Pairing Fruit with Garden Herbs

So you may be wondering why I would add an herb to this peach sorbet recipe.  The first answer is because I like to be different. The other reason is that peaches pair very well with herbs like mint and basil… so why not add it in to be again a little different.  Right?

Peaches have a very sweet almost honey like juice which is complimented by the soft savoury flavours and delicate aromas of basil and mint. Raspberries or Strawberries and mint are another great flavour combo to try out.  You can use this recipe and simply swap out the basil for the mint and the berries for the peaches.

How To Make Basil-Peach Sorbet

In a large heavy duty blender or food processor add 1 kg of frozen peach (semi-thawed).  ½ cup water, ¼ cup white corn syrup, ¼ cup sugar and ¾ cup of basil simple syrup. The recipe for the Basil Simple Syrup can be found in my Frozen Basil Bellini Mocktail Recipe.

Pulse on high to blend the fruit and sugar until smooth.  I like the peaches to be still very cold but slightly thawed to get a smoother texture.  You can also do with raw fruit it will just take longer for the sorbet to freeze.

Pour mixture into a ceramic or lined metal loaf pan.  Spread mixture out evenly with a spatula. Freeze for 3-4 hours.  If freezing for a longer period of time, allow the sorbet to soften on the counter prior to serving for a few minutes.

You can also make this sorbet recipe without the basil infused simple syrup.  To do so just make the simple syrup without the basil and add a tbsp of lemon juice to the frozen fruit mixture prior to blending to add a little extra pop to the flavour.  Just a little zing to really make this recipe sing.

Basil-Peach Sorbet Recipe

With so much fresh fruit to enjoy in the summer you can easily replace the peaches with any fruit you wish.  Watermelon has a little more water in it so if using this I you may not need to add any extra water. I would leave it out and then only add it in based on texture if needed.  

There you have it!  A fresh and tasty frozen treat to enjoy this summer!  Since it’s a light dessert it is great to serve at the end of a big meal or in between courses as a palette cleanser.