At its simplest, granita is a frozen fruit juice. But once you’ve mastered the basics, it’s easy to get clever with your favourite flavour combos!
BASIC GRANITA
- Start with your base syrup (below).
- Then choose 800g of your favourite fruit (or 800ml of fruit juice). Strawberries, raspberries, mango, pineapple, passion fruit, grapefruit, blood orange, apple, grape or still lemonade all work brilliantly.
- Follow the remaining steps below for a perfect granita.
THE BASE SYRUP
To make the syrup, mix 100g sugar with 300ml water in a small saucepan. Stir over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved, then allow to cool.
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THE PERFECT GRANITA
- Blitz the fruit into a smooth purée with a hand blender or food processor.
- Combine the purée, or fruit juice, with the base syrup and pour into a shallow container. Freeze for 2 to 3 hours.
- When the granita has set, scratch the ice with a fork until you’ve raked through all of it. Granita can be coarse or fine, so keep raking until you reach your desired texture.
- Freeze the granita for another hour, then briefly run a fork through it again before serving.
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EXTRA KICK…
For extra oomph, add any of the following to your base syrup while it’s heating, then strain once cooled:
lemongrass (1 stalk, bashed)
ginger (thumb-sized piece, grated)
cardamom (6 pods, husks removed and seeds smashed)
vanilla (1 pod, split and seeds scraped)
…AND A TWIST
- Stir in the juice and zest of 1 orange, lemon, lime or grapefruit to the pan with the syrup straight after you take it off the heat.
- Or add two Earl Grey teabags to your water before making the base syrup for a lovely fragrant flavour
TOP TIPS
- For a quick, fork-free granita, freeze different flavours in ice-cube trays, then just whizz them up in a blender when you fancy a cool treat.
- Save space in your freezer and freeze your granita in a flattened, resealable food bag.
This feature originally appeared in Jamie magazine.