Vegan Blood Orange Jelly with Toasted Almond Sorbet
Naturally sweetened blood orange vegan jelly is topped with a toasted almond milk sorbet in a decidedly adult take on the childhood favourite, ice cream and jelly.
Begin by making the sorbet. Preheat the oven to 180 celsius (350 fahrenheit) and place the almonds on a baking sheet in a single layer. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring halfway through, until fragrantly toasty. Leave to cool.
Place the nuts in a bowl and cover with 3 cups water. Leave for 12 to 24 hours to soak.
Drain the nuts and place in a blender with the water. Blend for 2 to 3 minutes before straining through cheesecloth or a nut milk bag. Squeeze out as much of the almond milk as you can.
Place the remaining half cup of water in a saucepan along with the sugar and liquid glucose. Bring to a boil and simmer for 3 to 4 minutes until all of the sugar is dissolved.
Pour into a large bowl along with the almond milk, amaretto and lemon juice. Refrigerate for 4 to 6 hours or until completely chilled.
Churn the almond milk mixture in your ice cream maker according to manufacturers instructions. Decant into a freezer safe container and freeze.
Juice the oranges until you have 2 cups (500mls) of juice. Strain through a fine mesh sieve. Taste the juice. If you find it too tart add 2 tsp of raw sugar. Add the agar powder and whisk to combine. Leave for 10 minutes.
Place the juice in a saucepan and bring to a boil, over a medium heat. Reduce to a simmer, whisking ocassionally. Simmer for 5 minutes.
Pour the juice into serving dishes and refrigerate for 4 hours or until chilled.
To serve top the jelly with a scoop of sorbet.
Notes
1. The liquid glucose helps create a lovely scoopable sorbet by controlling the formation of sugar crystals. While you can replace the liquid glucose with regular sugar, corn syrup, golden syrup or even honey (obviously not vegan then) the sorbet consistency will be affected. In Australia you'll find liquid glucose in the baking aisle of your supermarket. In the United States it is harder to find, but you can find it on Amazon here. 2. The small amount of lemon juice in the sorbet recipe helps counter the slight bitterness from the almonds. 3. The use of Amaretto or Vodka also helps ensure that the sorbet is scoopable from the refrigerator. 4. If you have agar flakes use 1 tbs of flakes for every 1 tsp of powder. Agar agar powder is commonly found in health food shops here in Australia. Outside Australia you can find it here on Amazon