To bid goodbye to his (soon-to-be) old job, Marlon and I decided to use his employee discount one last time to purchase one household appliance. After I exercised my wifely veto against the giant noise-canceling earphones, electric toothbrush, air fryer, and blue light (“…but you get so sad when it’s cloudy!” he protested), we finally agreed on one thing: an ice cream maker.

That was how, while I was sick in bed last weekend, my amazing kitchen demigod turned this…

… into this.

These photos were taken with hubby’s new Olympus PEN EP3… loving the color saturation from this camera! Special thanks to my mom and her good taste for the lovely vintage tablecloth.

Using fresh, in-season strawberries (only  €1 for half a kilo!) and the basil we are now attempting to grow at home, Marlon combined a recipe for homemade strawberry sorbet from The Joy of Baking with the idea of using whipped egg white as a binder from BBC Good Food.

1/3 cup (80 ml) water
1/3 cup (65 grams) granulated white sugar
500 grams fresh strawberries
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 egg white
handful of fresh basil leaves, chopped finely

Make a simple syrup using equal parts water and sugar. Dissolve the sugar in water in a saucepan over low heat; bring to the boil for about a minute. Remove and place in the refrigerator to chill.

Puree the strawberries in a food processor. Add chopped basil and lemon juice. Chill in the refrigerator. Meanwhile, whisk the egg white (the recipe says lightly, but my eager ice cream man whisked them until stiff).

Once both the strawberries and syrup are chilled, combine them with the egg white and transfer to the ice cream maker. Set to churn however your machine works; ours churned it for about half an hour. Watching it turn into ice cream was so exciting!

For the balsamic syrup, simply boil balsamic vinegar (we used the good stuff, aged for 8 years, from Florence!) with sugar to taste until it thickens into a syrup. Drizzle over the sorbet to serve.

We really should have put our sorbet in a container to freeze first. But we just couldn’t resist and had it straight out of the ice cream maker. Yum yum. Oh, and I’m feeling much better now… I’ve been healed by strawberry basil sorbet!