Lemons, Not Lemonade

I love the flavor of lemon. I love the particular cheery shade of yellow that lemons are. Recently, however, I had a true lemon of an experience attempting to make the lemon sorbet from Cook and Tell by Karyl Bannister. She gets lemon-fresh cheery (teary?) describing the luscious lemon sorbet made by a "dainty and dear lady" who made prepared this recipe in "her coastal cottage in Maine for over sixty years."

Made with just lemon juice, sugar, salt, milk, and heavy cream, I figured this would be a breeze. There are no eggs involved, so no cooking or coddling involved. Just mix up the ingredients and dump them into the new-to-me Deni ice cream maker from my local Goodwill.

Now don't get all wacky on me about buying stuff from Goodwill to use in the kitchen. I've been doing it for years. In fact, I have a fanastic used Zojirushi bread maker that makes a perfect half loaf. I figured the ice cream maker would turn out lovely soft serve ice cream for me all summer, saving me the one-block walking commute to the nearby Dairy Queen for service from indifferent teenage girls. I popped the gel-filled cylinder into the freezer and let it sit there for more than twenty-four hours.

The next day, I mixed some ingredients together, starting with lemons...

I juiced the lemons by hand, and stirred everything together until the sugar had dissolved...

I also added some yellow food coloring so the sorbet would be a lovely light lemon color. I set the machine up properly, checked the user's manual twice to be sure, and turned it on.

I quickly discovered that the cylinder wouldn't rotate with the top down completely. And the top wouldn't go down completely unless the plastic paddle was fixed just so. And the plastic paddle NEVER...I'm talking NEVER EVER EVER sat correclty.

I tried holding down the clear part (there's a cylinder, a paddle, and a clear part that is like a cover - except it has a hole in the middle where you pour the liquid.) Not working. I took the clear top off and let it spin. I left the paddle in, and the paddle spun with the cylinder.

After thirty or so minutes of the grinding of the machine, and me cussing, I gave up. The liquid was still very much a liquid, and I was cussing in oh-so-many ways.

I poured it into several ice cube trays...

and I poured it into cheap plastic popsicle trays I got years ago but have never used.

I cleaned up the kitchen. I waited two hours. And had the beginnings of a delicious frozen dessert as the liquid had begun to change to a soft ice cream consistency. I tried making a different dish and also failed miserably in the first step. I nuked something for dinner instead.

I couldn't resist attempting the accompanying hot blueberry sauce, and prayed that the third attempt at cooking a recipe from Cook and Tell would work. I really didn't want another disaster on my hands. I was also questioning my cooking mojo. I took the blueberries out of the freezer and put them into a pan, then added sugar, cinnamon, lemon, nutmeg and powdered ginger (the recipe called for crystallized and I had none.)

Then I heated up the blueberries and cooked until they were liquidy.

By that time, the sorbet was frozen enough to eat. I plopped some sorbet cubes into a fancy glass, and topped with blueberry sauce.

And went to lemon-blueberry heaven. All that fuss and muss was certainly worth it. Kind of. Taste-wise it was. Mess-wise it was not. The sauce is outstanding, all berry and ginger. But now I  need a new ice cream maker - any recommendations?