Warm, spicy nutmeg wafts from my kitchen and immediately I’m transported back to our honeymoon in Grenada.

As soon as we stepped off the plane at Port Salines airport, we were enveloped in balmy breezes laden with the mingled scents of vanilla, cinnamon and the sexiest spice of them all… nutmeg.

Everywhere you go on Grenada the nutmeg is in evidence. The flowerbeds and pathways around our resort were mulched with dried nutmeg shells, making the tropical gardens even more fragrant. I poured nutmeg syrup with gleeful abandon over my fluffy breakfast pancakes. Dave spread nutmeg jelly on his toast. Our rum punch came with a thick layer of freshly grated nutmeg. One night we had the most amazing caramelised nutmeg tart for dessert—the soft pericarp that protects the nutmeg and mace was caramelised and almost candied in syrup before being treated like a tart tatin—served with the richest fresh vanilla ice-cream I’d ever had.

By the time we said a sad farewell to the island, nutmeg ran hot and wild through our veins. So, is it any wonder that nutmeg represents sheer unadulterated happiness to me?

Grenadians are justly proud of their national fruit and biggest export. If you look closely at their flag, you can see a symbolic nutmegs proudly displayed upon it. The national nutmeg crop is the second biggest in the world–second only to Indonesia. While we were there we visited a nutmeg sorting station where the nuts were still sorted and graded by hand. It was fascinating to watch the workers hands which almost blurred as they stripped lacy veils of scarlet mace from matt brown nutmegs.

And so to the sorbet… The one nutmeg-flavoured dessert that we didn’t have in Grenada was nutmeg ice-cream. And I’m not going to have it today, either. I wanted to try and capture the heat of nutmeg as well as the more subtle nuances of its flavour. The creaminess of ice-cream would have masked most of this.

The sorbet was a triumph. It’s intensely perfumed and flavoured with nutmeg but with no bitterness from the long steep. Adding the liquid glucose makes a huge difference to the texture. This is the silkiest, smoothest sorbet I’ve ever made. Surprisingly Lucas loved the sorbet. He descended on me after I’d shot the pictures and kept coming back for “more peese”, punctuating his words with baby signing to drive his point home. It wasn’t all rave reviews, though. Dave felt that while it was good, it was missing something. He wasn’t sure if it was just that mentally he was used to having nutmeg with something–eg. a custard tart–or if it was an aspect of nutmeg on its own. I’ll have to experiment on him… I can’t stand for him not to rave about food that comes out of my kitchen!

If you’d rather, feel free to use the nutmeg sorbet as an accompaniment rather than the focus of dessert. It would be great with a rum-laced pound cake, banana bread, or… banana ice-cream. Yum!

This post is my entry for Think Spice… Think Nutmeg hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen. Think Spice was created by Sunita.

Nutmeg Sorbet

Note: Liquid glucose is used to depress the freezing point of the mixture and thus give you a smoother–and slightly softer–texture to the sorbet. It does the same job for ice-cream. You can buy small jars of this in supermarkets or you can ask your local Pharmacy to order you a much larger jar. It keeps for years, so this is the cheapest route to take if you reckon you’ll be giving your ice-cream machine a work-out over the summer.

500ml water
250g granulated sugar
3 heaped teaspoons liquid glucose
1 nutmeg

Place water, sugar and liquid glucose into a medium saucepan and heat on low until the sugar has dissolved and a syrup formed. Bring to the boil and grate the nutmeg directly into the syrup. Put the lid on and simmer for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and leave to cool, covered.

If you’re unsure about how strong you’d like your sorbet to be, taste the syrup after it has infused for 10 minutes and then keep on tasting it. Remember that freezing the syrup will blunt both the sweetness and flavour of the nutmeg.

Strain through a coffee filter/sieve lined with fine muslin/whatever you can improvise. Ideally run it through the filter twice to get out the finest particles. The more you filter it, the clearer the sorbet. (This brought back memories of Chemistry lessons in high school.) Chill in the fridge until thoroughly cold.

Churn in an ice-cream maker, following the manufacturer’s directions.