Palm Springs is an odd little place. There are lots of golf courses, of course, and plenty of old people. There is almost always at least one convention going on (some event planner wisely decided to counter the thousands of peppy teens and tweens by scheduling a rodeo during the same weekend). They have an unsurprising glut of restaurants ... and a surprisingly large proportion of those restaurants are really good.
Not that we ate at too many places. With Sherman's Deli—a.k.a. the land of the unholy-good-Reuben—just down the street from our hotel, it was hard to be very adventurous. In fact, one day we ate such a great lunch at the deli that we didn't have room for any of the desserts in the very large bakery display, so we had dessert for dinner. Malia had a cream puff that was nearly the size of her head, Mike had a slice of coconut cream pie, and my sister and I had frozen yoghurt from a little shop down the street.
If you've ever been there, you probably know that the frozen yoghurt craze that has come and gone in the rest of the country two or three times never died in Palm Springs. They are everywhere. Most of them are the self-serve places with an endlessly-changing armory of flavors, and if you know anything about me, you know that I get weak in the knees for good frozen desserts. I bypassed the standard (chocolate and cheesecake) and odder (red velvet cake?) flavors and went straight for the pink grapefruit.
It was perfect. Not too sweet and with a bold citrusy flavor, I could as easily imagine it served in a shot glass as a palate cleanser at a fancy restaurant as from a paper cup at a country fair. I immediately proclaimed that I would recreate it when I got home, but grapefruit season was already past, and within a few months all I was making in my churn were strawberry ice creams and sorbets.
A couple weeks ago, though, I saw fragrant grapefruit at the store and decided to dive in. Winter may not be much to talk about here in L.A., but even when I lived in colder climes winter never stopped me from eating ice cream. After all, anecdata (I can't find any reputable information) says that we Alaskans eat more ice cream per capita than any other state.
It was worth the wait. The resulting frozen yoghurt is the palest pink (if you used red grapefruit it would probably be a bit darker) and not too tart—the acidity of the grapefruit really comes through.
Pink Grapefruit Frozen Yoghurt
After a little bit of research on Yelp, I discovered that we had gone to Yogurt on Tap, which claims to be the first self-serve frozen yogurt shop in Palm Springs (they also claim that frozen yoghurt is a healthy dessert, so have at it, I guess).
8 ounces granulated sugar (1 cup)
zest of 2 grapefruits
2 cups fresh pink grapefruit juice (from 2-3 grapefruit)
2 cups plain, whole milk yoghurt
Rub the zest into the sugar in a small saucepan (supposedly this distributes the oils for better flavor; I don't know if it really does anything, but I do it anyway). Add one cup of the juice and heat over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved. Mix in the additional juice and pour through a sieve into a large bowl, pressing out as much liquid as possible from the zest. Discard the solids and thoroughly chill the syrup mixture.
Add the yoghurt, stirring until combined. For a perfectly smooth mixture you will want to use a blender or immersion blender, as stirring will probably result in some small chunks of yoghurt that refuse to mix in. I ignored them and they mixed up fine in the churn (and saved me some dishes). Freeze according to your ice cream maker's instructions.
Makes one quart
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