Black Coffee Granita
Turn into a macchiato granita by adding a dollop of live sourcream
Friends! Where did the Irish heatwave go?!
Don’t panic. Your week is about to get significantly more exciting. This coffee granita can brighten up a grey flat day, like an unsupervised ice cream to a giddy pug. There is so much power in pleasure.
Make a badass batch, and hide it in the freezer. During long summer holidays when kids are off school, this granita will have your veins doing the cha-cha. All the better if you get your mitts on locally roasted stuff from micro coffee houses. There are some celestial artisanal roasters popping up around Ireland, doing small batches of brilliance. Heard of McCabes of Wicklow? Calendar Coffee subscription club based in Galway? Cloud Picker and Imbibe of Dublin? I sip myself into a shamanic frenzy, knowing that these guys poured their hearts and heads over my coffee beans, read them bed time stories, and washed them under moonbeams to Mozart’s requiem.
Did you know that cold brewing or filtered black coffee comes out top of its league in terms of health and longevity benefits. Crazy?
The good news is that, for many of us, black coffee may slow down our epigenetic ageing clock, drop cardiovascular risk and sharpen cognition.
But, then again, caffeine can also powerfully disrupt sleep, thereby compromising some (if not all) of the health benefits. Yup. Coffee consumed earlier in the day, supports our natural circadian rhythm. So in short, nothing after noon!
Want to learn more? Take a listen to Dr Patrick’s meta analysis of the data available on coffee consumption …
Yes, there is so much power in pleasure. Besides, coffee is a bean, and beans are from plants. So this is basically salad right?
Love, light, and granitas,
Susan Jane
X
// Black Coffee Granita//
Serves 6-8
We use agave here, as it is the most neutral of sugars. Maple will overpower the taste of coffee, as too will date syrup and honey.
500ml filtered coffee or cold brew
65ml agave nectar
Squeeze of fresh lemon
6 teaspoons crème fraiche (optional macchiato vibe)
Step 1
Gently warm the coffee and agave, so that they mix nicely. Agave tends to mix easily in liquids, so you will not need much heat.
Step 2
Add a squeeze of lemon, and pour into one or two freezer-proof containers. Leave to stand until cool. Then stir, and place in the freezer.
Step 3
After 3o minutes, take out of the freezer and crush the sides into the centre using a fork and tenacity. Return to the freezer for another 30 minutes, and then repeat the fork mashing step. This helps to break up the sheets of crystals – you don’t want a mammoth block of ice! Keep repeating this step 5 or 6 times during the freezing process to achieve a lovely consistency. Basically, stir it every 30 minutes until it resembles granita (freezers will differ in their strength, so keep an eye on yours).
Step 4
To plate up, take out the granita 5 minutes before serving. Spoon the coffee snow into little shot glasses and dot with crème fraiche or sourcream if you’re going for a macchiato vibe. If you have a bar of chocolate loitering, a curl of chocolate using a potato peeler is also mighty pretty.
If you forget about the fork churning, don’t panic. You can break the coffee ice up into a food processor, and blitz into snow. Then serve right away.
