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| A fluffy frozen treat! |
This week’s Baked Sunday Mornings challenge is for Lemon Lime Champagne Granita. This is, by far, the easiest recipe we’ve made!
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| These simple ingredients are all it takes! |
Italians are extremely indulgent of children. When we moved to Naples in 1972, I was nine and my brother had just turned seven. We were fawned over quite a bit with our blue eyes and my blonde hair. Our parents had a friend named Alfonso who was like a grandfather to us – all the more so because our real relatives were back in California. One warm, summery, day, he showed up at our house with an ice shaver and a bag of lemons. We thought he was making us fresh lemonade, but the result was much more exciting to us! It was lemonade poured over crushed ice: Granita! It took no time at all for us to fall in love with this Italian favorite and since fresh lemons were available in abundance in Naples, my mom indulged us with this treat fairly often.
Matt and Renato’s grown-up version which features sparkling wine – we used Prosecco in ours – is even easier to make. Although it does require zesting and juicing 2 lemons & a lime, all the magic happens in the freezer. All you really have to do is take it our and fluff it up with a fork every so often to keep it from freezing solid. This version is very zesty & it’s easy to imagine all kinds of variations with all kinds of fruits. It’s a wonderful thing to make when you’ve got a bit of sparkling wine leftover – all it takes is 1 1/2 cups! You can find the recipe here.
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| New Orleans street corner |
One of the most popular ‘desserts’ at some point here was what we call lemon champ, which is champagne with lemon ice cream, all mixed together until you have sort of a smoothie. This recipe reminded me of that. Amazing! So refreshing and simple!
Yum! Great way to use up a bit of leftover alcohol 🙂 If you don’t mind I wanted to invite you to come link up at Recipe Sharing Monday and share your favorite recipes. Have a super week. 🙂
What a lovely granita story!
Beautiful! I love the St Germain idea, I have some left in a bottle and will definitely have to try this as I still have a serving or 2 of granita left. Yum!
Oh my – the temperatures here may be below zero, but I would still love a scoop of that 🙂
It really is a great way to use up sparkling wine. I really loved it with the lemon and lime. This could definitely become a summer favourite.
Love your presentation. Those green dishes are beautiful!
Happy New Year Susan, what a fun a delicious looking treat. And I love the memories it recalls for you!
What a bright and citrusy treat!
Susan – you just solved a puzzle for this week’s dessert! Our lemons are ripe and we still have a couple of limes on the tree, too! Now, my question… Have you ever made this a day or two in advance? I need it for Tuesday night but need to make it Sunday. What say you???
Great, David! I hope you’ll really enjoy it. I think it will be just fine until Tuesday. The important thing is to fluff it every now and then. If you have any left, you must try it with St Germain!
While this wouldn’t be my cup of tea now in Colorado, it sounds great now that I’m in Cali and the temps are in the 70s. I am praying for rain. The whole state needs it badly. An easy dessert or snack, for sure.