Apricot sorbet with coconut water & jasmine

Hi!

I promise there is a recipe card saying “eat me” at the end of this rabbit hole.

Eating a banana during covid was one of the most disgusting experiences of my life - I couldn’t smell anything, so I couldn’t taste anything, and the banana was just a vile texture, a flavourless mushy glop.

But the return of my sense of smell, and with it my tastebuds, created a deep fascination with the taste-smell connection and the impact of scent on perception of flavour. So I often find myself finding inspiration for flavour combinations in perfumes. If it smells nice, it must taste good too, no?

That was how this particular sorbet came together. It all started with one of my favourite perfumes and evolved from there. It works equally well with peaches and apricots, but I do particularly love apricot with floral teas like osmanthus or jasmine.

Both apricots (and peaches) and coconut share aroma compounds - lactones - with a creamy, coconutty, peachy aroma. Jasmine lactones, that are distinctly creamy with a peachy-apricotty-coconutty aroma are found in jasmine tea.

All this to say, apricot, coconut and jasmine play extraordinarily well together, both as a fragrance and as a dessert.

I cannot stress enough to find a coconut water you like the taste of. If it tastes stale, it will come across in your sorbet so really - find a brand you like the flavour of!