Granita

Lemon, lime & mint:

For this recipe I used 260g of juice with the same amount of syrup. It was pretty tart and sweet, but had the nice soft texture I like. If you want an icier version, add a few TBSP of water to dilute it! 

(Syrup: 1 cup each granulated sugar and water and mint, just heated gently and stirred to dissolve the sugar, and taken off the heat to cool once fully dissolved and just simmering. This yields around 450g syrup. I used golden sugar for flavour, but use white if you want. You can make plain syrup or infuse with herbs, spices… all sorts!)

Adapting to your tastes and other base ingredients:

You can use juice or pureed fruit (just strain it through a sieve first to minimise pulp/fibres in the granita). Just make sure you keep tasting and adjusting and you can add water or acidity to thin it down and tone down the sweetness.

If your fruits are sweet, you can add a little lemon/lime juice to bring some acidity, especially if you’re wanting a less icy, more slushy granita.

Remember, there is a good range of sugar/water ratio that will result in granita, the main difference will be the texture. So you can also adjust this to your liking! A more diluted mixture will give icier granita, and a more concentrated one will give softer, slushier granita. As long as it is highly flavoured and sweet enough or a little too sweet when liquid, it should taste good when frozen!

Some of my favourites: pretty much any citrus, watermelon, peach, pineapple, pomegranate, lime & elderflower. 

Leave it in the freezer for at least an hour, probably 2 to begin with. Don’t let it freeze solid, but enough to get that scrapey action going. After the first freeze, you can scrape every 40-60 minutes depending on how cold your freezer is. It will take a few hours and 3-4 rounds of scraping to be finished. Because it’s not cooked, very fresh and high in water content, it will keep for a few weeks but is best enjoyed as fresh as possible!