Berry Sherbet {Dairy Free & Vegan}

Name: Berry Sherbet (Dairy Free & Vegan)
Prep time: 10 min
Total time: 85 min
Ingredients: 1/2 pint raspberries; 2 cups fresh strawberries (hulled and chopped); 2 cups unsweetened coconut milk (not the canned kind); 1/3 cup agave nectar; Juice of half a lemon; 1 t. raspberry extract (or vanilla extract); 1/4 t. almond extract (optional)

V VG GF DF

By Danae

on Apr 30, 2014, Updated Jul 17, 2024

4 from 3 votes

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One of my favorite parts about warmer temperatures is cold, sweet, refreshing desserts. That’s not to say that I don’t eat cold desserts when it’s snowing outside (yes I have gone to get frozen yogurt when there is 6 inches of snow on the ground and more falling), but they seem to taste even better on a hot day. This Berry Sherbet is the perfect and dare I say healthy dessert to satisfy your sweet tooth on a warm sunny day.

Before I tell you about how I made this fabulous Berry Sherbet I need to tell you about my love of ice cream and all frozen desserts.

As you may already know I have a slight obsession with frozen yogurt and ice cream. My love for the delicious sweet frozen treat started at a very young age. I’m pretty sure I inherited my love for it from my grandparents who always had it on hand when we would come visit. My dad who is also a big ice cream fan, was no help to my slight addiction to the creamy treat. Our freezer at home was always stocked with a couple of flavors. Now as an adult my husband and I go out every weekend for frozen yogurt. If I miss a weekend I feel incomplete. I think I like going out for frozen yogurt because there are so many flavors to choose from and I feel like I’m being slightly healthier by choosing this over ice cream. Of course by the time I fill my cup, which is usually to the top, and load it up with topping (frosted animal cookies, vanilla wafers, strawberries, whipped cream, and caramel) it’s probably not all that healthy. But hey it’s my weekly indulgence!

I love that the frozen yogurt shops have options for everyone. They have the regular yogurt, sugar free, and sorbets in case you can’t or don’t want dairy. Oh and the toppings! This is where I lose control. I start by saying I’m just putting fruit and granola on top, but then I find my self reaching for the cookies, chocolate chips, and cookie dough…whoops. Last year I finally bought my own ice cream maker. If you don’t have one and love ice cream, froyo, sherbet, and sorbet as much as I do, it’s a great investment. There really is nothing like making your own frozen treats and this Berry Sherbet which happens to be dairy free and vegan is no exception. The idea for this sherbet came from my favorite cookbook for making ice cream, sherbet, and sorbet; The Perfect Scoop written by David Lebovitz. This guy really knows his stuff and the book is a must for anyone who loves ice cream as much as me!

Sherbet and sorbet differ from each other in that sherbet has dairy in it and sorbet doesn’t. Normally I would have just used cow’s milk in the sherbet, but I had a box of opened coconut milk in my fridge that I wanted to use up. I decided that this would be the perfect way to finish it off. To my blender I added a pint of fresh raspberries, a couple cups of chopped fresh strawberries, two cups of the coconut milk, 1/3 of a cup of agave nectar, a teaspoon of raspberry extract (this stuff is amazing if you can find it), a little almond extract, and the juice of half a lemon. I blended the ingredients until they were smooth and then put the mixture through a strainer to remove the seeds. Then I simply poured it into my ice cream maker and let it churn for about 15-20 minutes. When the mixture was frozen I scooped it out of the machine and into a plastic container. At this stage it is the consistency of soft serve. I let it harden up in the freezer for an hour and then scooped myself out a delicious dish of it. It was so good! It was perfectly sweet without being overly sweet, and the flavor of the raspberries and strawberries was really the star of this dessert. The lemon juice and raspberry extract enhanced that wonderful berry flavor. If you can’t find raspberry extract you can use vanilla extract, or even coconut extract would be good! If you are an ice cream/frozen yogurt ~~freak~~ enthusiast and want to try something a little different, but still have that deliciously sweet frozen dessert, try this Berry Sherbet, a treat that everyone can enjoy!

4 from 3 votes