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Plum Sorbet Sandwiches with Mary Jones from Cleveland’s Molasses Cookies

After a year of 80-hour workweeks cooking in France, I moved to Boston, where I worked a very civilized 40 hours a week. With so much free time on my hands, I focused my attention that summer on making ice cream sandwiches. I sandwiched lemon ice cream with gingersnaps, coconut ice cream with macadamia nut tuiles, and mint ice cream with chocolate chunk cookies. My friends and neighbors could hardly keep up with the frozen cookie–ice cream combos that filled my freezer. Many summers later at Lucques, local farmer James Birch delivered several unexpected crates of his delicious Santa Rosa plums. We were drowning in summer fruit at the time, and I couldn’t imagine what on earth we were going to do with those extra plums. I remembered that hot Boston summer and decided to purée the plums into a sorbet and sandwich them between chewy molasses cookies. If it’s a truly lazy summer day, you can skip the sandwiching step and serve the sorbet in bowls with the cookies on the side.

Recipe information

  • Yield

    makes 1 quart

Ingredients

1 pound very ripe juicy plums
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 lemon, for juicing
Molasses cookies (recipe follows)

Mary Jones from Cleveland’s Molasses Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 cup molasses
1 cup granulated sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
3/4 cup vegetable shortening, melted to equal 1/2 cup, cooled
1 extra-large egg

Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Cut the plums in half, remove the pits, and cut the halves into quarters.

    Step 2

    Toss the plums with the sugar and honey, and let sit 30 minutes. Transfer the fruit to a blender, and purée until very smooth. Season with lemon juice, to taste.

    Step 3

    Chill at least 1 hour in the refrigerator.

    Step 4

    Process the purée in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

    Step 5

    To make each plum sorbet sandwich, scoop up about 1/4 cup of the sorbet and place it on the bottom side of one of the cookies. Then place the bottom side of a second cookie over the ice cream and gently press to make a sandwich. Wrap in plastic wrap and freeze.

  2. Mary Jones from Cleveland’s Molasses Cookies

    Step 6

    Preheat the oven to 325°F.

    Step 7

    Sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger. Stir in the salt.

    Step 8

    In a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the molasses, sugar, melted shortening, and egg at medium speed for 3 minutes.

    Step 9

    Turn the mixer off and add half of the dry ingredients to the bowl. Turn the mixer to medium-low and mix to incorporate, scraping down the sides of the bowl, as needed. Add the remaining dry ingredients and mix to combine. Chill the dough for about 15 minutes, to make it easier to work with.

    Step 10

    On a lightly floured surface, roll half the dough out to 1/8-inch thickness. Use a 3-inch round cutter to cut out the cookies. Place them on a parchment-lined or lightly buttered baking sheet, spaced about 1 inch apart. Sprinkle a little sugar over the tops of the cookies, and bake about 12 minutes, until they puff up slightly and are starting to crack in the middle. The cookies will be crisp on the outside and chewy in the center.

Sunday Suppers at Lucques [by Suzanne Goin with Teri Gelber. Copyright © 2005 by Suzanne Goin. Published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved.. Suzanne Goin graduated from Brown University. She was named Best Creative Chef by Boston magazine in 1994, one of the Best New Chefs by Food & Wine in 1999, and was nominated for a James Beard Award in 2003, 2004, and 2005. She and her business partner, Caroline Styne, also run the restaurant A.O.C. in Los Angeles, where Goin lives with her husband, David Lentz. Teri Gelber is a food writer and public-radio producer living in Los Angeles. ](http://astore.amazon.com/epistore-20/detail/1400042151)
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