Home › The Principles of Cookery › Granito, Roman
Granito, Roman
Mix a pint and a half of strong coffee with a pint and a half of syrup. Strain through a silk sieve into wide-mouthed decanters, and freeze as directed in the recipe for granito claret. Serve in coffee-cups or glasses. Sufficient for three pints.
A coffee water-ice of the coarse, granular type rather than a smooth sorbet. The whole point is the crystal: it should be scraped and stirred while freezing, never churned smooth.
- The syrupVictorian recipe books mean a stock sugar syrup, of the sort made by boiling sugar with water and cooling it; proportions vary from book to book, but something in the region of 2 lb sugar to a pint of water is typical. Equal volumes of that and coffee gives a very sweet mixture by modern taste; a lighter syrup (roughly 1 lb sugar to a pint of water) is closer to what most people now expect. Some sweetness is structural, as it keeps the ice from setting into a solid block.
- "Strong coffee"Stronger than a breakfast cup, roughly double-strength drip or a long-brewed pot. Freezing mutes both aroma and bitterness, so a coffee that tastes slightly too intense hot will taste about right frozen.
- Silk sieveA fine mesh strainer or a coffee filter does the same job, which is simply to catch grounds and any scum from the syrup.
- Wide-mouthed decantersThe freezing method is given under granito claret rather than here; the usual period arrangement was a vessel set in a pail of ice and salt. A shallow metal tray in the freezer is the modern equivalent, and the wide surface helps rather than hinders.
- FreezingFreeze in a shallow pan and rake the mixture with a fork every 30 minutes or so, breaking the ice into flakes at the edges and stirring them inward. About 3-4 hours total. If left undisturbed it sets hard and must be scraped or broken up before serving.
- Texture is the testGranito should be loose and crystalline, spoonable, not creamy. An ice-cream machine will overwork it into a sorbet, which is a different sweet altogether.
- YieldThe recipe gives three pints, enough for something closer to twenty small coffee-cups, or a dozen or so small glasses. Serve soon after the final raking, as it will consolidate on standing.
Granita is the Italian family of coarse water ices, the name coming from the grain-like crystals, and coffee is one of its oldest and most durable flavours in both Rome and Sicily, where granita di caffè is still a summer breakfast alongside a brioche. Cassell's includes it alongside granito claret because by the late nineteenth century British households with an ice-cave or a pail of ice and rock salt could make frozen sweets at home without a churn, and the granular ices were the easiest of the lot: no custard, no cream, no risk of curdling. The serving instruction, in coffee-cups or glasses, may be a small piece of evidence that it was understood as a frozen version of the drink rather than a dessert course.