Granitas

Here's a trio of Granitas, the Italian ice with attitude. Lacking the sophistication and smoothness of a sorbet, Granitas are smashing smashes of icy sharp texture and arctic tastes, heaped shavings of flavoured ice piled up in a pre-chilled serving glass. It’s worth giving them a single stir as they freeze, about an hour into freezing, depending on how aggressive your freezer is, just to stop the mixture settling out - but don't over-smooth things, a Granita should be jaggy!


Coffee Granita

Ingredients

• 200ml strong coffee
• 1 orange, juice and zest
• 2 tsp brown sugar
• Generous shaving of nutmeg
  

Peel the zest into curls using a potato peeler and pour the hot coffee over the curls to allow them to steep. Mix in the brown sugar and stir to dissolve, then the nutmeg. Leave to cool, then strain the mixture and freeze it.

Pineapple Granita

Ingredients

• 100g fresh pineapple, chunked
• 200ml water
• 2 tsp brown sugar

Whizz, strain, freeze.

Orange Granita

Ingredients

• 200g fresh pineapple, chunked
• 250g orange segments
• 3 limes, juiced
• 100g brown sugar
• 4cm piece cassia (or cinnamon peel)
  
• 275ml water

Boil the cassia in 100ml of the water for five minutes, then remove the cassia and stir in the sugar to dissolve. Add the rest of the water and pour the mixture into a blender, adding the lime juice, pineapple and orange segments (take care there are no pips or pith left on the orange segments and do save as much of the juice as you can when you’re segmenting the orange!) and whizzing. Strain and freeze.

Mango and Lime Sorbet

With strawberry cream

This is a dessert sorbet: a soft, shandy-drinking Southern pouf of a sorbet, designed to nestle in a bed of fluffy strawberry cream like a pampered pussycat in a bean bag. Until you rip its head off with your spoon, of course. Try not to think about that when you're eating it...

Ingredients

• 1 large ripe mango, @500g
• 3 limes, zest and juice
• 225g caster sugar
• 500ml water
• 2 egg whites, beaten to soft peak
• 150ml double cream
• 8 ripe strawberries

Slice the mango in half and remove the stone. Scoop out the flesh using a serving spoon, removing as much flesh from the stone as possible, and then whizz the flesh. Place the water in a pan over a low heat, and dissolve the sugar in this. Add zest and juice of the limes and then heat, a softly rolling boil, if you please, for 15 minutes, then remove the pan and leave it to cool. Strain the mixture into your freezer bowl. Freeze. After about 2 hours, remove the mixture from the freezer, give it a quick bash to remove any crystals then fold in the egg whites, mixing them in thoroughly. Replace the sorbet in the freezer and re-freeze.

Whizz the strawberries and then strain to remove the pips. Beat the cream until thickened, adding the strawberry mixture slowly. Refrigerate, and serve the sorbet on a bed of the cream. If you can't get really ripe strawberries, consider throwing a tablespoon of honey into the cream mixture.

Strawberry Sorbet

A good old fashioned, straightforward sorbet. None of yer fancy posh modern muck. No, a sorbet like we used to have 'em, back when dad would nick t'ice out of t'ice house from t'big house up t'hill.

Ingredients

• 500g ripe strawberries
• 175g caster sugar
• 570 ml water
• 3 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 egg whites, whipped to hard peak

Boil the water in a pan, adding the caster sugar and lemon juice as soon as it starts to bubble, and keep this mixture on a rolling boil for about 10 minutes. Leave this to cool for 15 minutes, then add it to the strawberries in a blender and blend well. Strain the mixture through a fine meshed sieve into your freezer container. Place the sorbet in the freezer, returning to it after about 2 hours to give it a quick stir to break up the crystals, and then folding in the egg whites. Return the sorbet to the freezer, and then stir it again after an hour and repeat until it's frozen.

Balsamico Ice Cream

I do wish people could just eat ice cream and enjoy it: you know, just get on with it, without any of that 'Oh, I really shouldn't, I feel so naughty! stuff that some people seem to think is necessary. It's a bit like swearing and then covering your mouth and saying 'Excuse my French!': nobody needs that.

You simply have to make this. It's smooth, soft, velvety and cold, like a dead otter's nose. It’s a great dinner party finish – get them to guess what they’re eating. Then tell them it’s made out of badger’s blood.

Ingredients

• 100g soft brown sugar
• 150ml double cream
• 50ml milk
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 2 egg yolks

Whip the yolks and sugar to a cream and then add the balsamico slowly, whipping as it combines. Heat the milk and cream to boiling point and then pour into the sugar mixture, whipping the mixture constantly. Return the mixture to the pan and stir constantly for a further 2 minutes or so to thicken it further, then pour back out into the bowl to cool. Freeze, stirring every 20 minutes as the mixture freezes and crystallises.