It is getting to be that time of year again — blood orange season and Elena’s birthday.  Blood orange sorbet is frequently requested for her birthday. She isn’t home until the end of March this year. I am hoping that blood oranges last until then.

I have an awesome Italian ice cream freezer that rarely gets used but is really superb. I have a family that really likes ice cream. And I have an ice cream book by Le Notre as well as myriad other old fashioned cook books in paper that have delicious ice cream recipes in them.

The Le Notre recipe for orange sorbet requires sugar cubes. You rub them on the rind to kind of grate the orange peel.  But I had no sugar cubes and have no idea how much 8 sugar cubes weigh so that I could ball park it with granulated sugar.

So I turned to my ice cream mentor David Lebovitz. Of course he has posted a recipe for blood orange sorbet on his blog.

In a nutshell, the recipe calls for ¼ cup sugar for each cup of juice. Moisten the sugar with some of the juice and warm it until the sugar dissolves.  Then mix it with the rest of the juice and chill. Once cold, freeze it in your freezer.