On Friday, Molly Moon Neitzel of Seattle's Molly Moon's Homemade Ice Cream hosted a book launch-cum-ice cream social at Vine Wine in Brooklyn. Why do you care? Because it helped us rediscover sherbet punch just in time for summer, and now you can, too.
BA Test Kitchen director Mary-Frances Heck has been toying with a sherbet punch recipe for months, in fact, so we talked Molly into letting us bring the booze and test it out on her guests.
We arrived at Vine Wine to discover that the Moon, a.k.a. the Queen of Cones (and the inventor of our June recipe for Apricot Crumble Parfait), had the pop-up sundae shop routine down pat. She gently suggested we use her organic strawberry lemonade sorbet in place of the neon orange sherbet of Heck's church party youth. While Moon scooped up sundaes topped with hot fudge, bee pollen, and lavender, Heck mixed up an industrial-sized bowl of gin, citrus, and cava topped with pink sorbet roses.
After a flute of punch and a few sundaes, Molly spilled her secrets for sundae success:
by Mary-Frances Heck
Serves 60
This punch is the grown-up version of the ice-cold, sticky-sweet concoction that was served at church picnics when I was a kid.
1 lemon, thinly sliced
1 lime, thinly sliced
1 orange, thinly sliced
1 750 ml bottle Navy Strength Gin
1 case (that's 12 bottles) sparkling wine, chilled (try Cava!)
1 gallon fruit sorbet (we used Molly Moon's Strawberry Lemonade)
Combine fruit and gin in a large punch bowl. Add scoops of sorbet then pour over sparkling wine. Add ice and let stand 10 minutes to chill. Drink with caution.
--Hannah Sullivan