Cantaloupe melon sorbet with biscuit cups

• By Matty Cremona

Choose melons that feel heavy for their size, give a little when pressed gently and smell sweet and ripe.

You will need:

For the sorbet: two kilos of ripe cantaloupe melon (flesh only), 350g of granulated sugar, 400ml of water, the juice of two lemons, 50ml of strawberry liqueur (optional), a handful of finely chopped fresh mint leaves.

For the sauce: 500g of strawberries (hulled) OR peaches (peeled and pitted), the juice of one lemon, one tablespoonful of icing-sugar (or more to taste).

For the biscuit cups: 125g of plain flour, 125g of icing-sugar, the yolks of two eggs, the whites of three eggs.

To make the sorbet: liquidise the melon until it is very smooth. Put this in a bowl and chill it. Meanwhile, make syrup by dissolving the sugar in the water over low heat, and boiling it for five minutes. Allow it to cool and stir in the lemon juice. Stir the syrup and melon together in a freezer-proof bowl and put it in the freezer. As it freezes, remove it at regular intervals and whisk it to break up the ice crystals as they form. Keep whisking and freezing until you have a creamy mass. Add the strawberry liqueur and finely chopped mint leaves to the sorbet at this point, and then whisk it again one last time and return it to the freezer. Allow it to soften slightly at room temperature before serving it in the biscuit cups (recipe given overleaf).

To make the sauce: puree the strawberries with the lemon juice and icing-sugar. Pour a little of this over the sorbet when you serve it. Use peaches when strawberries are out of season.

To make the biscuit cups: sift the flour and icing sugar into a mixing bowl. Add the yolks and egg-whites and mix them well. Grease some baking-paper and draw round a big saucer to make four circles on it. Put a tablespoonful of mixture on the circle, spread it out thinly and bake in an oven preheated to gas mark 5/190 C for about five minutes or until they are turning brown at the edges. Take them out of the oven and flip them over a greased orange. Using a dishcloth or a thin oven-glove, press gently down on the pastry and shape it well. Remove it and repeat the process until all the mixture has been used up. Fill them with melon sorbet. Pile a few chopped strawberries on a plate, add the cup of sorbet and pour over a little strawberry sauce, then top it with a sprig of mint.