While I love ice cream in all of it’s forms, I must say that the Italians do it best. Ever since our trip to Italy ten years ago, I’ve been a huge fan of gelato and sorbetto. A love that only intensified when my cousin gave me his gelato maker when he moved to Italy a few years back. Last weekend, I decided it was time to break out the gelato maker and make some strawberry sorbetto and nutella gelato.

After spending my Friday afternoon strawberry picking at Wightman’s Farm, I was all set to make some delicious strawberry sorbetto. I hate to admit that it’s been a few years since the last time I made sorbetto so I did some research to find the right recipe. I finally settled on this recipe from Grounded Traveler’s blog because they had learned it while at Carpigiani Gelato University which is also home to the Gelato Museum! The recipe is super simple (just pureed fruit, water, and sugar). The key to a great sorbetto is super ripe fruit similar to when you’re making jam (which coincidentally is what I used the leftover strawberries for). Also don’t forget to strain your strawberry puree to remove the seeds. Since my strawberries were very sweet on their own, I probably could have reduced the sugar in the recipe a little bit because the sorbetto ended up on the sweet side for my taste, but was still delicious and had a beautiful red color.

In Italy, whenever I would get gelato I would always go for the “due” which had two different flavors and my favorite combination was strawberry sorbetto with chocolate hazelnut gelato. For the chocolate hazelnut gelato I turned to one of my favorite Food Network personalities, Giada de Laurentiis. I’ve made her recipe a few times and every time it comes out perfectly.

While I was strawberry picking, I stopped into the market at Wightman’s Farm and picked up a quart of rainier cherries. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them, but after talking with Tori we decided to try making our own version of Cherry Garcia. I started out with the basic gelato base from Giada’s recipe, but instead of adding any nutella I just increased the vanilla. I let the vanilla base churn in the gelato maker until it was almost set. Then I added about a cup of quartered cherries along with a cup of cherry puree (which I cheated and added a few strawberries to make it more red since rainier cherries don’t have the same great color as bing cherries do). Right before the gelato was finished, I added mini chocolate chips. We were happy with the end results. The chocolate chips and cherry pieces added great texture while the pureed cherries gave it a great mild cherry taste!

We can’t wait to try making different types of sorbetto throughout the summer with all of our farmers market and pick your own produce! What’s your favorite types of gelato or sorbetto?