How to make granita siciliana

Granita is a semi-frozen dessert typical of the Sicilian tradition that has become a classic in ice cream parlors especially in summer.

Granita is the ancestor of ice cream, unlike ice cream, granita is not very well known in the world for various reasons, given the difficulty of translating the term, passing through the lack of advertising that, over the years, has made this not a leading product, making it remain anchored to an almost archaic tradition.

Furthermore, we do not underestimate the difficulty of the entire production process.

Today, even the difference between granita, sorbet and ice cream is not even recognized.

Granita is a mixture of water, fruit and sugar: only three ingredients, as there is no need to incorporate air.

The right balance between these three ingredients allows the water not to separate from the rest of the components.

Taking for granted the use of water of medium hardness and high quality sugar, it is necessary to identify the best ingredient (fruit, cocoa, coffee, etc.) in order to achieve an absolute quality granita.

Since no thickeners of any kind are used to make good granita, it is necessary to know the sugars and fibers.

All this is especially when we talk about fruit granita.

About 2 grams of fiber and 5/6 grams of sugar for 100 grams of product. Clearly tends to grow or increase based on the maturity of the fruit in question; the best solution could be to use refractometer in the laboratory to check how many sugar are inside the fruit.

Difference between pulp and citrus fruit in minimal percentages

Fruit and pulp not less than 35% in recipe (strawberry, fig, kiwi, etc.)

Citrus fruits not less than 20% in recipe (lemon, bergamot, etc.)

It is very important to know that there are fruits that clearly make an exception: the percentage of melon and watermelon must exceed 65% in the recipe.

Dried fruit

In this case, in addition to setting a minimum usage limit, it is essential to insert a maximum limit in order not to risk making the final product excessively heavy and consequently not digestible due to the presence of fats that characterize the totality of the dried fruit. A minimum reference of 15% and a maximum of 25%.

Chocolate

For our chocolate granita, as for the other granitas, we will use only three ingredients with the exception of a possible addition of aroma (cinnamon, chili, etc.)

To be inserted between 2 and 5 g per kg of product.

We will use a 10/12 cocoa powder by inserting it in the recipe between 7 and 10%; choosing for example 75 g per kg of product. Then we multiply 75 g of cocoa by 3 to obtain the quantity of sugar needed to give the chocolate granita the right sweetness but also to make sure that the water does not separate from the rest of the ingredients: then SUGAR 225 g. To complete the recipe 700g of WATER. The choice of aroma does not change the balance of the other ingredients at all.

Extraction and conservation of granita

It is necessary to identify the optimal temperatures

during the extraction phase and in the conservation phase. We will choose a temperature between -3 and -4 as the extraction temperature to avoid freezing the mixture and a temperature between -8 and -9 during the daily conservation phase.

Granita siciliana recipes

Almond Granita

180 G of Almonds

160 G of Sugar

600 G of Water

Chocolate Granita

75 G of Cocoa

225 G of Sugar

700 G of Water

Melon granita :

650 G of Melon

180 G of Sugar

170 G of Water

Strawberry granita:

400 G of Strawberries

190 G of Sugar

410 G of water

Kiwi granita:

350 G of Kiwis

180 G of Sugar

470 G of Water

Lemon granita:

200 G of Lemons

220 G of Sugar

580 G of Water