No Bake | Mulberry Strawberry Buttermilk Sorbet & Mulberry Jam … In season with mulberries!

“I put everything I can into the mulberry of my mind and hope that it is going to ferment and make a decent wine. How that process happens, I’m sorry to tell you, I can’t describe.”
John Hurt

Mulberry Strawberry Buttermilk Sorbet & Mulberry Jam! Here we go round the mulberry bush tree, and looks like I’m going to stay right under it! We’re enjoying a very short and very sweet mulberry season. I feel so inspired! Seems like it’s going to be mulberries all the way.

Mulberries are actually a good source of raw food protein, a rarity in the fruit kingdom. They are also a good source of magnesium, potassium, riboflavin, iron, calcium, vitamin C, and fiber. One of the mulberry’s greatest health assets is it’s high concentration of resveratrol, an antioxidant currently being studied for its effects on heart health.

The sudden mulberry distraction {maybe madness} arrived unannounced as usual. This post is more about the story around the fruit, than the sorbet or jam itself. The latter would barely spin a tale, though the sorbet recipe is a real winner!

A large number of us joined the very large hearted and talented Neel at Learn Food Photography to polish our photography knowledge and skills. A few of you might know that I am still very lost about the technicalities behind the camera and am a compulsive auto shooter.

So thanks to this 30 day exercise, we are down almost 3 weeks doing what we like to do best. That includes virtually meeting and interacting with a huge like minded community. {The photograph below is one of my favourite shots from last week.}

In addition to some serious photog learning, the interactions are also a huge take away. It’s fascinating to see how food photography can reunite folk from India to Mexico! Together we’ve played with light, angles, DOF, backgrounds, props, diffusers and so much more. Maybe you can catch bits in my photographs. You can see the sorbet in many different hues, from an early morning shot, to a rather deep pink late evening one. An enriching experience!

It was on the forum that I chanced upon a photograph of mulberries that Ozan from Turkey shared. That made me sit up. What happened to our mulberry season? Why didn’t I remember? Man Friday was immediately summoned and commissioned with ‘the mulberry task’.

He never fails…never! He soon brought me a bag of pretty, juicy mulberries, sweet as sweet could be. Morning saw me stirring mulberry jam! Nothing to the recipe. Just the berries with equal sugar, a vanilla bean, a dash of lime juice.  I threw in some aged balsamic too. Simmered until soft over low heat, then cooked until it thickened somewhat. TADA! Jam! No pectin, nothing!

I get a HUGE bagful every alternate day. I’ve frozen some. Throw them into smoothies for the kids. A strawberry mulberry smoothie is beautiful. Then I wanted to make something I’ve waited long to  make, a buttermilk sorbet. I added some mulberries  instead of just a strawberry sorbet. Delightful!

This mixed berry sorbet is light, refreshing, summery and beautiful! I shot it in many different ways in the ongoing LFP exercise. It included styling – napkins, garnish, Pinterest inspiration etc. I got some right shots, and some very wrong.  So much fun, and so much to learn.

It was three days of ‘mulberry shots‘! Another huge bagful came in this morning so the head is buzzing with mulberry coloured thoughts again. Any recipe suggestions are more than welcome. Hopefully I’ll have another mulberry centric post out this month!

Until then, please help yourself to really really refreshing and pretty Mulberry Strawberry Buttermilk Sorbet. The Mulberry Jam is quite sweet and makes for a nice addition in a berry dessert sauce, added to whipped cream into a fool, dolloped over breakfast cereal or slathered onto a warm buttery toast! I love cooking in season!

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