Strawberry sherbet with shortbread fingers

8 servings

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
900 grams English Strawberries
600 millilitres Water
600 millilitres Caster Sugar; (measure this in
; measuring jug - it
; needs to be same
; volume as water)
2 Lemons; (juice)
30 grams Caster Sugar
55 grams Unsalted Butter
55 grams Plain Flour
30 grams Semolina
15 grams Skinned and Chopped Hazelnut

Directions

STRAWBERRY SHERBET

SHORTBREAD FINGERS

1. Dissolve the sugar in the water in a saucepan over a gentle heat. When it is all dissolved turn up the heat and bring to the boil. Simmer to reduce the syrup in volume slightly and thicken the consistency. Cool and then chill.

2. Hull the strawberries and puree them in a blender with the lemon juice.

3. Mix together the strawberry and lemon puree with the stock syrup and then pass through a fine sieve. 4. If you have an ice cream maker, pour in the sherbet and set to 40 - 45 minutes to churn and freeze. Alternatively, freeze in a shallow container in the freezer until the sorbet is slushy. Remove from freezer and whisk until doubled in volume. Return to freezer.

5. Repeat this process twice more to ensure that any ice crystals are broken down and dispersed and the resultant sherbet is creamy and light.

Skin Hazelnuts

6. Spread hazelnuts on a baking sheet and roast in a hot oven for 4 or 5 minutes until the nuts are golden and the skins start to lift. Tip onto one half of a clean dry tea towel. Fold the second half over the hot nuts and rub with the tea towel until the skins rub off. Shortbread Fingers 7. Preheat oven to 150ºc / 300ºf / Gas Mark 2. Grease a flat baking sheet.

8. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

9. Mix together flour and semolina and sieve. Add nuts.

10. Gradually work the sifted flour and chopped nuts into the creamed mixture until it forms a dough. 11. Blend the few crumbs in with your hand to make it all stick together.

Gently knead it on a lightly floured surface until smooth. This is a fragile dough - which is why it is so crumbly and rich to eat - so handle it lightly and carefully. Heavy handling will cause the butter to oil out and the biscuits to be hard instead of crispy and crumbly.

12. Roll out lightly to a rectangle about ¼ inch thick. Exact size is unimportant since you will be cutting it into finger shapes. Crimp the edges with the back of a fork and make fork marks all over the dough in even lines. This is partly traditional and partly to prevent the biscuits from bubbling up in places.

13. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes until lightly coloured. Dredge with caster sugar. Mark into finger shapes. When cool, lift with palette knife onto cooling rack until cold.

14. The biscuits only become crisp when cold.

15. They make lovely accompaniment to mousses, fruit salads and ice cream Converted by MC_Buster.

NOTES : Chef:Tessa Bramley

Converted by MM_Buster v2.0l.

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