Granita di Mandorle

Sicily's flaked almond ice, raked from sweetened almond milk and eaten at breakfast with a warm brioche

Origin: Catania and Syracuse, Sicily, Italy

From the journey of Almond.

Granita is the iced refreshment of the Sicilian summer, and almond, mandorle, is one of its most beloved flavours, alongside lemon, coffee, and the wild mulberry. It is a coarser, more crystalline thing than a sorbet: sweetened almond milk frozen slowly and raked again and again with a fork, or churned in the old way over salted ice, until it sets into soft, separate flakes that melt instantly on the tongue. In the south-east of the island, the home of the Avola almond, the almond granita is the queen of them all. Its most cherished setting is breakfast. Across eastern Sicily, in the heat of June and July, the morning meal is a granita served with a warm, soft brioche col tuppo, the little topknotted bun that is torn and dipped into the ice. To eat almond granita and brioche on a Catania terrace as the day warms is one of the island's defining pleasures, a custom that turns a dessert into the first meal of the day. The drink and the ice share an ancestry in the almond milk of Arab Sicily, the same pressed liquor that the convents of Noto made famous. The finest almond granita needs nothing but good almonds, water, and sugar, with the faint bitter-almond note that marks the Sicilian hand; its whole character is the pure, cold taste of the nut.

Ingredients

Almond ice

200 g blanched almonds (Avola if possible)
800 ml cold water, plus extra for soaking
140 g caster sugar
0.25 tsp almond extract, or 2 bitter almonds, ground

To serve

warm brioche, to serve (traditional)

Method

Soak the almonds in cold water overnight in the refrigerator, then drain.
Blend the drained almonds with the 800ml cold water until as smooth as possible, then strain through muslin, squeezing the pulp hard to extract all the milk.
Stir the sugar and almond extract into the almond milk until fully dissolved. Taste: it should be a touch sweeter than you want the ice to be, as freezing dulls sweetness.
Pour into a shallow metal tray and place in the freezer. After 45 minutes, when ice crystals form at the edges, rake the whole tray thoroughly with a fork.
Return to the freezer and continue to rake with a fork every 30 minutes, breaking up the crystals each time, for about 3 to 4 hours, until the whole tray is a mass of soft, glittering flakes.
Spoon into chilled glasses and serve at once, with a warm brioche alongside for dipping in the Sicilian way.

Notes

Granita is best eaten the day it is made, while the flakes are soft; if it sets hard in the freezer, let it stand a few minutes and rake again before serving. Without raking, the same mixture poured into a churn gives a smoother almond sorbet. An espresso machine's worth of granita and a brioche is the classic eastern-Sicilian summer breakfast.

The Gastrographer

Name: Granita di Mandorle
Prep time: 15 min
Total time: 4 h
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Italy
Ingredients: 200 g blanched almonds (Avola if possible); 800 ml cold water, plus extra for soaking; 140 g caster sugar; 0.25 tsp almond extract, or 2 bitter almonds, ground; warm brioche, to serve (traditional)

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control