Last week I got to go on a Cranberry Farm Picking Experience with Colonial Lantern Tours.  I've gone apple picking and strawberry picking before, but this was the first time I've ever gone cranberry picking.  No, we didn't get to put on those rubber overalls and wade in a cranberry bog, but we did get to see how a flooded cranberry bog is harvested and also how cranberries are dry harvested.  Lastly, we got to hand pick our own cranberries!  Fun fact:  only 10% of cranberries are dry harvested, and only the dry harvested cranberries will be sold fresh in stores.  The other 90% are wet harvested and will go into cranberry products like cranberry sauce and cranberry juice.

 
Even before I went on the tour, I started looking up cranberry recipes to try.  The ones that caught my eye were a bittersweet cranberry brownie and a pecan topped cranberry cake.  Then my friend Ellen suggested that I make Jeni's Cranberry Royale Sorbet.  And boy, am I glad she did. 

Cranberry Royale Sorbet from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home
makes about 1 quart

2 grapefruits (you need enough to get 3/4 cup of juice; I needed 1 1/2 large grapefruits)
One 12-ounce bag cranberries (fresh or frozen)
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons water
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1 1/2 cups sugar

 
Using a vegetable peeler, remove 3 large strips of zest from 1 of the grapefruits. Halve the grapefruits and squeeze 3/4 cup juice.

 

Combine the grapefruit juice, zest, cranberries, water, corn syrup, and sugar in a 4-quart saucepan and bring to a boil. Boil just until the cranberries begin to pop open, about 5 minutes. (My cranberries started to pop before it was anywhere close to boiling, so I just put a splatter screen on top of the saucepan and continued to heat the pan.) Remove from the heat and let cool.

 

Remove the grapefruit zest. If desired, puree the cranberry mixtures in batches, or leave unpureed for a chunkier sorbet.

 

Chill the mixtue and then freeze in an ice cream maker. Spin just until the consistency of very softly whipped cream.

 

  

On the following page in her book, there's a gorgeous picture of an Oslo Ambrosia sundae, which consists of a meringue topped with raspberry lingonberry sauce, a scoop of the Cranberry Royale, and topped with cardamon scented whipped cream.  I just new I had to try to make this sundae, if only because it looked so pretty.  Instead of making a raspberry lingonberry sauce, though, I just saved a few tablespoons of the sorbet base before it was frozen and added a spoonful of raspberry preserves.

 

I also used coconut whipped cream instead of dairy whipped cream and should be posting that recipe soon.