Granita: Italian cold dessert

Italians have two favorite cold desserts: sevenfredo and granite. But if semifredo is prepared from fat cream ice cream, then for granites use fruit ice. This cold dessert is somewhat like sherbet, but the granite structure is more dense.

Serve granite usually in glass glasses, which it is desirable to serve in an empty form for 15 minutes in the freezer, so that the cold dessert does not so quickly began to melt.

Strawberry granite

From strawberries, you can prepare a lot of summer desserts, including granite. To prepare a cold strawberry dessert, we will need:

• 
  200 ml of filtered water
• 
  125 g of fructose
• 
  10 berries of strawberry
• 
  2 tbsp. l. lemon juice

Strawberry, remove the stems and dry with paper napkins. Put strawberries in a blender, add the rest of the ingredients and whisk until we get a smoothie.

We pour strawberry puree into plasticcontainer and for two hours we put it in the freezer. During this time, the mass should freeze, but it does not freeze completely. We take the form, carefully mix the contents with a fork and again clean in the refrigerator for 6-8 hours.

Before serving, take out the form, leave for a quarter of an hour, beat the dessert with a fork until fluffy, lay out on kremankam or glasses and serve to the table.

Cherry Granite

Cold dessert from a fragrant cherry - what could be better in the summer heat? For the preparation of cherry granite we take:

• 
  300 g of cherry puree
• 
  250 ml of water
• 
  175 g of sugar

Water poured into the saucepan, add sugar and heat on low heat until the sugar dissolves. Bring to a boil and boil for three minutes, should get a liquid sugar syrup.

When the syrup is completely cooled, mix it with mashed potatoes until smooth and put into a container. If you want a more fresh taste, you can add crushed leaves of fresh mint to the mixture.

We remove to the freezer for two hours (the mixture should bestart to freeze at the edges). After two hours, mix it with a fork and put it back in the freezer. So we mix the granite 3-4 times every half hour. Before serving, we lay out on glass glasses.

Lemon granite

Fans of sour refreshing taste are advised to try the lemon granite. Prepare it very simply, for this we need:

• 
  200 ml of water
• 
  140 g of sugar
• 
  125 ml of lemon juice

Dissolve sugar in water to get syrup,then add the lemon juice. We pour into the container, put it in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours, after which every half hour we mix our cold dessert with a fork until we reach the desired consistency, as in the previous recipe. Before serving, you can decorate the dessert with fresh mint leaves or basil.

Orange granite

This is a cold dessert "for adults", because it includes the orange liqueur Cointreau. For the preparation of "alcoholic" granite we will need to take:

• 
  500 ml freshly squeezed orange juice
• 
  150 ml of water
• 
  100 ml of Cointreau liqueur
• 
  100 g of sugar
• 
  25 g finely chopped mint leaves

We put the pot of water on the middle fire,add sugar and heat, stirring constantly, until the sugar dissolves. Add the mint to the syrup, mix, pour Cointreau and turn off the stove. Pour in the juice and mix again.

We pour out the future dessert on containers and setin the freezer for several hours. Further, the freezing scheme is standard: periodically it is necessary to mix the granite with a fork to make a crumb of fruit ice. Before serving, you can decorate the dessert with berries.

Bon Appetit!