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

Name: Plum Sorbet Sandwiches with Mary Jones from Cleveland’s Molasses Cookies
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); 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

January 24, 2012

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.

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