Thanks Molly! Here’s the recipe for cloudberry sorbet. It’s one of our favorites! We sure do miss picking cloudberries. (But, we think we found a “secret patch” for next year!)

Years ago, we were introduced to cloudberries in Point Hope. I was immediately smitten. Looking back over our blog recipes, I could see how my imagination was fired up with these fragile salmon-colored beauties. I turned out cloudberry jams, syrups, cakes, cookies, scones and our very favorite – cloudberry sorbet.

In the late summer, we would pick these jewels out on the Arctic tundra. They grew in soggy marsh atop small, rounded knolls. North of the Arctic Circle, berry picking was always wet and cold and sometimes mosquito-infested. Looking across the tundra, I would first see the dark plants hugging the ground on bumps of land. As soon as my eyes adjusted, bright orange berries seem to magically appear. In spite of the cold or the thrum of mosquitoes, I loved berry season and the stillness and quiet of the open tundra toward summer’s end. And I loved dreaming up ways to use these berries. My berry picking method? One, two and three for the bucket and one to sample for inspiration. Repeat until container is filled.

Our first cloudberry-picking session was the inspiration for this recipe. We had gone out on a frost-chilled morning. As we were sampling the cloudberries, Jack remarked that the berries tasted just like sorbet. I agreed and was determined to make that morning’s catch into just that, sorbet.

We had heard rumors that cloudberries grow somewhere around our new home by the shores of Lake Iliamna. As we’re getting to know our surroundings here, we’ve been on the lookout for these little treasures. The good news is that we’ve come across quite a few plants. The bad news is that we missed them this year. But maybe we found a place… It’s something to look forward to next year!

Cloudberry Sorbet

Ingredients

• 2 cups water
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 4 cups fresh cleaned cloudberries

Directions

1. Mix water and sugar in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Cook mixture until the sugar is fully dissolved to make a simple syrup.
2. Remove pan from heat.
3. Add cloudberries to the simple syrup.
4. Using an immersion blender, blend the mixture until smooth.
5. Strain half of the mixture through a fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth to remove the seeds.
6. Discard seeds.
7. Repeat with the second half of berry mixture.
8. Cover and refrigerate 2 to 3 hours, or overnight.
9. Using an ice cream maker, pour chilled mixture into frozen freezer bowl. Turn machine on and let it do its magic. It will take about 20 minutes to thicken. Sorbet will be soft and creamy.
10. To store, transfer sorbet to an airtight container and keep in the freezer.
11. To serve, allow sorbet to thaw for about 15 minutes before scooping and enjoying.