Citrus Salad with Grapefruit Sorbet and Cornmeal Shortbread

I know that the citrus fruit season is coming to an end soon, but if you can find the time this is one light and flavorful dessert. I am not sure why I never made sorbet at home before, maybe because I love ice cream so much that I never took the time to try it. This sorbet is the easiest and oh so refreshing. Stay tuned for more sorbet recipes.


For the citrus salad I cut each fruit segments out, which is really time consuming but results in a pretty composition. If you don't want to go through the trouble you could remove the skin of the fruit with a sharp knife and slice the fruit instead. If you opt for the segments, make sure your knife is sharp otherwise you will end up with just juice and little pulp.


I used a combination of cara cara oranges, blood oranges, and star ruby grapefruit. For the sorbet I used another variety of grapefruit, but I forgot the name, it has an orange yellow skin and a nice pinkish red flesh so the color of the sorbet turned light pink. Any combination would work, but for the sake of the presentation I would include some blood oranges as well.

It took me a while to decide how to serve the two components as I wanted to add something crunchy to the plate. I consulted few books and I settled on Claudia Fleming's cornmeal shortbread because cornmeal and citrus really work together. I have tried two other recipes from her book The Last Course and they didn't work, so I was a little concerned when I put the cookies in the oven, fearing the worst. Luckily the shortbread worked, came out delicious and crunchy. On an interesting note, this book is out of print and sells new on Amazon for $245, can you believe it? I wish I had bought two back then...


You can make each component by itself, or serve them all together. Make ahead note: the short bread dough needs chilling so it could be made the day before. The sorbet base needs to be chilled too before being frozen, so plan ahead. The fruit salad can be made the day before as well, cutting the segments is time consuming so plan ahead too.



Citrus-Cornmeal Shortbread
adapted from The Last Course

8 oz unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup confectioner's sugar
2 tsp grated citrus zest (I used grapefruit)
1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
6 Tbs coarse cornmeal
1/2 tsp salt

Beat butter and sugar until creamy and smooth. Add the zest and mix well. With a spatula clean the side of the bowl and add the flour. Mix on slow until just incorporated, cleaning the sides few times to make sure the mixture is even. At this point you can bake the cookies in a traditional circular shape, or a square, or roll the dough to a 3/4" height and cut little long rectangles. Score the dough with a fork, and chill it well before baking it at 300F, until barely colored. The recipe can be easily doubled and the extra cookies can be cut and frozen raw for later use.

Grapefruit Sorbet
adapted from The Last Course

3 cups strained grapefruit juice
1 1/2 cups simple syrup*

Mix the juice and simple syrup, chill for three hours. Freeze according to your ice cream machine instructions. *Mix 1 part water and 1 part sugar (1 cup:1 cup), bring to a boil and let cool.

Citrus Salad

A mixture of citrus fruit, peeled and segments cut out (keep the juice that drips from the fruit). Chill well until ready to serve. Add mint simple syrup to taste.