How to make Almond Granita at home

To make an almond granita you need almonds, yes, almonds 🙂 better if they are good and fresh.
And the first thing to do is to get the base i.e. the almond milk,

This is a very simple recipe, a recipe with 2 ingredients needs to have as much as possible, good quality almonds to make your almond milk. We already talk about almond milk in our article on almond okara

Let’s make Almond Milk

If you are using whole almonds in the shell:

Crack almonds open using a nutcracker or the traditional (old-school) fashion as you see in the below photograph. Reserve just enough almonds to achieve 150 grams. Then proceed to next grinding your almonds for about 7-10 seconds in a food processor until a fine grind is achieved. Note on grind amount: You still want small piece integrity without making an almond paste.

If you are using deshelled almonds:

Grind your almonds for about 7-10 seconds in a food processor until a fine grind is achieved. Note on grind amount: You still want small piece integrity without making an almond paste.

Quickly scold the water in a pan until the temperature is achieved, then place it in a large bowl.

Carefully scoop the almonds into the cheesecloth, using a cupping motion, twist off the top of the cloth to make sure the almond pieces do not fall out into the water. With very clean hands, massage the almond enwrapped cheesecloth in the warm water for about 5 minutes, then add in the sugar.

Move on and transform almond milk into a granita

Here in Sicily, granita is serious business and to go too deep into investigating the various systems, techniques, and schools would be too technical.

We will give you one of the simplest versions that can be made at home, considering that granita almost is served for breakfast in the summer.

You will need to put the mixture back in the freezer and every 30 minutes turn it with a hand whisk, in this way, the ice crystals break up well.

You will see that as you go, your granita will gain consistency, remaining creamy. It will take about 4 hours. Then if you don’t eat it right away, you will find it as a block of ice the next day. You will have to take it out of the freezer 10 minutes earlier and then break the crystals with the tines of a fork and it will become creamy again.

To get the right creaminess of Sicilian almond granita, I recommend that you puree the mixture with an immersion blender or electric whips to remove all the ice crystals that have formed. Serve immediately or store in the freezer for a few more hours.

Traditions impose to eat with something, the brioche became a Must last century but bread is another popular way maybe older, so it’s time to deep your brioche or bread into your almond granita, have a nice day!