Buying fresh produce is ridiculously therapeutic. Walking around the fresh food isle and slowly filling my basket with fruits and vegetables of all colours and shapes brightens any day and is so uplifting. What cheers me up the most is when I approach the clearance section and see fruits. Our local supermarket has this habit of reducing everything that does not look picture perfect. Most of the time this is done by people who have very little knowledge of how fruit ripens which is a huge benefit to me. Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining here about getting really good produce for a fraction of the normal price. Far from that. The slightly over ripe fruits make the best desserts and jams. My elderflower and strawberry granita could not taste better when made with slightly over ripe strawberries.
Since it is just the start of the strawberry season and the elderflower season just came to its end I am making a seasonal granita sweetened with elderflower cordial instead of sugar. In fact when your strawberries are this sweet you don’t even need sweetener. I add the cordial as extra flavour and add a lemon to balance the sweetness. When you buy strawberries in bulk like I do then it is all a matter of selecting the ripest strawberries and cutting away as little as possible. A big portion of berries get eaten raw the first day – nothing is better than fresh strawberries that are as sweet as candy because they hit the stage of perfect ripeness. The remaining fruit that didn’t get frozen or eaten are turned into jam or granita.
Generally I go by the rule of eating the best berries raw, the very ripe ones go into the strawberry granita and all slightly overripe and bruised ones make it into the jam. Making granita is pretty straight forward. Puree the fruit, add sweetness if needed and process in a blender or food processor to desired consistency and freeze. You can serve this elderflower & strawberry granita as dessert on its own or with fresh fruit.
- 500g strawberries
- 250g peaches
- ½ lemon, with peel
- 500 ml elderflower cordial
- Clean the strawberries and peaches and add the with the halved lemon to a food processor or high speed blender and process until very smooth.
- Add the elderflower cordial and run for a few more seconds.
- Pour the liquid into an ice cream machine and churn. Follow the instructions of your ice cream maker.
- Pour the mass from the ice cream machine into a freezer friendly container and cover with a wax paper. Freeze for at least 3-5 hours but you will get the best results if it is left overnight.
Loved it. Made it without an ice cream maker. Turned out great.
Love how you added elderflower to this. It is so delicious just wish there was no sugar in the cordial.
I am trying to avoid added white sugar. What can I replace the elderflower cordial with?
You can try a pure fruit juice like orange or apple.