Watermelon Granita
I never would have made watermelon granita, not in my entire life.
BUT, when the Kosher Connection group of bloggers decided to do a recipe swap — prepare a recipe from someone else’s site — and some automatic machine or other chose whose site we had to get the recipe from, it turned out that the pick for me was Tribes-A-Dozen, run by the very talented Leah Hadad, whose specialty is baking.
In fact, her site promises (and delivers) recipes for “the kind of bread your great-grandmother used to make (she of the handed down recipe).”
Not only does Leah have some awesome recipes on her site, she now sells Voila! Hallah bread mixes.
I bake sometimes, usually pie or banana bread or muffins. Not yeast breads. That takes a special talent and time and I don’t have either. Except for maybe challah, which is also Leah’s ultimate specialty.
My grandma did hand down a great, award-winning recipe for challah and frankly I can’t imagine making a different one. And I couldn’t make and match the other breads on her blog. So I searched around for something else and found her recipe for Watermelon Granita, which is not only lightly sweet and great tasting, it is also perfectly refreshing on a hot summer day, and if you live near me in the northeast and living it out in one of the worst heat waves ever, is a splendiferous thing to eat.
I followed Leah’s recipe for Watermelon Granita, but I changed her call for some vanilla sugar into a small amount of extract. I am also presenting it here edited in the style I use. This stuff is really a terrific treat, a summertime special and I’m kind of glad I went through this process to find, make and enjoy a recipe that I never otherwise would have made.
The recipe is below. And btw, if you want to enter a contest to win a beautiful and useful Emile Henry product (Bread Cloche OR Dutch Oven) that goes hand in hand with our recipe swap, click here.
Watermelon Granita (from Leah Hadad at Tribes-A-Dozen)
10 cups cubed watermelon (about 1-inch cubes)
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup water
1/4 cup lemon or lime juice
pinch kosher salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Place the watermelon cubes in a food processor (you may have to do this in parts) and process until the fruit is pureed. Strain the puree through a sieve into a non-reactive bowl, pressing down to extract as much pulp as possible. Place the sugar and water in a saucepan, bring to a boil and stir to dissolve the sugar. Remove the pan from the heat. Stir in the juice and salt. Let cool and stir in the vanilla extract. Mix the watermelon and sugar mixture and pour into a pan about 14”x10”. Place the pan in the freezer. After 30 minutes, scrape the sides that have frozen slightly, to crush the ice particles. Repeat this every 30 minutes another 5-6 times or until the mixture is completely frozen into particles. Makes 12 servings