After lunch, the table still scattered with crumbs, squeezed lemons and the shrapnel from the shells of a pile of grilled langoustines, we brought out fruit water ices to eat in the late afternoon shade. There was a sorbet of apricots, barely frozen, the colour of the setting sun, and another vivid with lemon and thyme. The sorbets cooled our tongues after the heat of the shellfish and for five minutes there was blissful silence.

You don’t need an ice cream machine to make sorbets, but having access to one will give a smoother texture. If you haven’t got one, just remember to give the fruit purée a stir every hour as it freezes. Folding the frozen surface and those sparkling outer edges that are first to freeze into the middle will produce an ice akin to one which has been churned.

It was one day last week, cooking lamb cutlets over a smoking grill, that I crushed a bunch of lemon thyme in my hand and mentioned, only half seriously, that I would love to make an ice cream with something of the resinous-citrus flavour of that herb. This week I had a go. The idea that it was going to taste of something more than lemon came as I tasted the syrup in which I had stuffed a handful of sprigs and let it sit for an hour to take up the herb’s essential oils. I used fresh lemons as well, fat ones from my local Turkish greengrocer with their reassuringly glossy leaves and unexpected thorns.

The second ice was one I have tried to make before, but was disappointed by its lack of depth. Apricot is a tricky flavour to harness. The trick is to roast the fruit, allowing it to cook almost to the point of collapse, its amber flesh caramelising in the process. The flavour, second time round, was that fleeting thing, a truly ripe apricot warmed by the sun.

Lemon thyme water ice

Serves 4



caster sugar 100g

water 200ml

lemon 1

lemon thyme 30g

lemon juice 200ml

Put the sugar in a small, heavy-based saucepan, pour in the water and place over a moderate heat. Using a vegetable peeler, remove the peel from the lemon in thin strips, push into the sugar and water and bring to the boil, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has dissolved.

Rinse the bunch of lemon thyme under cold running water, bash it lightly with a rolling pin, then push it down into the syrup with a spoon, cover with a lid and leave to cool. Refrigerate until thoroughly cold. You could speed up the infusion by putting the pan into a large bowl of ice.

Remove the pan from the fridge and lift out the bunch of lemon thyme, shaking it as you go. Don’t worry if some of the leaves fall off into the syrup. Pour the lemon juice into the syrup, then pour into the bowl of an ice cream machine and churn until almost frozen. Transfer to a plastic freezer box and freeze till needed.

To make the ice without a machine, pour the syrup and lemon juice into a plastic freezer box and mix thoroughly. Freeze for 2 hours, then stir and return to the freezer. Continue freezing and occasionally stirring until frozen.

Roast apricot sorbet

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Cool meets crunchy: roast apricot sorbet, served with pistachio biscuits. Photograph: Jonathan Lovekin/The Observer

Serves 6



apricots 600g

caster sugar 200g

water 200ml

lemon juice of 1

Set the oven at 200C/gas mark 6. Halve and stone the apricots and put them, cut side up, in a nonstick roasting tin or baking dish. Scatter half the sugar over them and roast for about 20 minutes, checking the sugar has melted and is browning, but not burning. Remove from the oven when the apricots are fully soft and the syrup is golden. While the apricots are roasting, put the remaining sugar into a small saucepan with the water and lemon juice and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat as soon as the sugar has dissolved and leave to cool.

Tip the apricots and their roasting juices into a food processor and blend to a smooth purée then pour in the cooled syrup and combine. Transfer the apricot mixture to an ice-cream machine and churn until almost frozen, before scooping into a freezer box, covering tightly and freezing until needed.

To make the sorbet without a machine, pour the apricot mixture into a plastic freezer box and mix thoroughly. Freeze for 2 hours, then stir and return to the freezer. Stir occasionally until frozen.

Pistachio cookies

The perfect little cookie for ice cream.

Makes 40 small cookies



butter 200g

icing sugar 90g

vanilla extract

shelled pistachios 70g

ground almonds 70g

plain flour 70g

Grind the pistachios till they are roughly the same texture as ground almonds

Cut the butter into small pieces, place in the bowl of a food mixer with the icing sugar, and beat until pale and soft. Stir in a couple of drops of vanilla extract. Grind the pistachios to powder in a food processor. You need them to be roughly the same texture as ground almonds. Set the oven at 180C/gas mark 4. Line a baking sheet with baking parchment.

Stir the pistachios and almonds into the butter and sugar. Take 1 heaped tsp of the dough, roll loosely into balls and place, a good 3cm apart, on the baking parchment. Bake for about 6 minutes until the cookies have flattened and spread a little, but have yet to colour. They will be soft, and should be left to cool slightly before being transferred, using a palette knife, to a cooling rack.

Continue with the remaining mixture. The cookies will keep for several days in a biscuit tin.

Email Nigel at nigel.slater@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter@NigelSlater