Blanco y Negro, Espresso Granita with Sweet Cream Ice Cream
I don’t know about you, but I am finding it hard to focus on autumn recipes, fall products and produce. Today I did my first trip to the pumpkin farm. It was supposed to be my only trip to the pumpkin farm this season, but as it turned out, today was my first of at least two. See, the farm was still closed to the public! I should have been surprised, but I really wasn’t. These hot temperatures! How can one think of autumn recipes, even on the first day of the new season?
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want this to sound like a complaint, it’s not at all! You know summer is my favorite season. But I somehow feel obliged to start thinking of autumn recipes —the apples, the pumpkins and squashes, pears—, and I am having a hard time.
So today I’m sharing another summer recipe, my favorite ice cream concoction when I’m in Spain: blanco y negro, which, you guessed it, translates to white and black. I don’t know why I hadn’t made this before, because it’s really quite simple. It might be because there are flavors and dishes and treats that I associate with being in Spain, and couldn’t imagine having them in the States, or at least not in the Midwest. Blanco, or white, sweet cream ice cream, and negro, or black, espresso granita.
In Spain I don’t usually have it anytime after 5 o’clock, because the coffee granita is so strong, it keeps me awake (by the way, we call it granizado de café, coffee granita, because in Spain, coffee is espresso). But since I’m making it myself, I’ve lowered the concentration of caffeine by mixing one pot of regular and one pot of decaffeinated espresso. It still has a strong coffee flavor, the way I like it, but the concentration of caffeine is lower. I used my stovetop espresso maker, but you can use any machine used to make espresso or coffee.
A couple of days ago my son Matthew, who is in university, interviewed me for his Spanish class. The questions had to do with my culture, my heritage, and adapting to America. I don’t remember each of the questions exactly, but I do remember at one point telling him some things that I found different in Spain and in America. My answers were for the bigger, obvious things —the different traditions, the celebrations, social and family life, social services, and the like. But there are many other small differences that I encounter every day. I once read that the United States has the largest per capita consumption of ice cream in the world. And yet, ice cream flavors are quite different here than in Spain. We must be born with our taste buds linked to our country of origin, because I still can’t find here my favorite ice cream flavors, and yet, after all these years, they continue to be my favorites: hazelnut, lemon, leche merengada, turrón, sweet cream. Maybe you can find them if you live in a large, cosmopolitan city, but that is not the case for me—ironically, my hometown of Onteniente is only miles away from the ice cream and turrón making mecca in Spain, Jijona, or Xixona in the Valencian language.
I now make my own lemon ice cream (find the recipe here), and my leche merengada ice cream, which I will share some day. And now, sweet cream ice cream and espresso granita.
I used an ice cream machine to make the sweet cream ice cream, out of convenience, but you can make it manually, following the same process you would with the espresso granita, which I explain below.
I hope you like blanco y negro as much as I do. And now, maybe, next recipe in Mama Ía blog will include some autumn ingredients (weather permitting!)
COFFEE GRANITA
Granizado de Café
Ingredients:
3 cups espresso
4 Tbs sugar
Make the coffee according to your coffee maker directions (I use an italian style espresso maker and make it quite strong). You can make it decaffeinated as well.
Sweeten the coffee with the sugar, stirring while it’s still hot, until the sugar is completely dissolved. Let it cool at room temperature, about 1 hour. Place in the fridge for about 3 hours.
Pour the liquid in a plastic or non-reactive metal container and place it in the freezer. After about 1 hour, remove from the freezer and stir with a small beater, releasing the coffee that has started to freeze around the edges. Place back in the freezer for another 30 minutes and repeat the process, stirring the coffee that has started to freeze around the edges of the container. Place back in the freezer and repeat the process. Eventually the espresso will start to freeze solid. Use the tips of a fork to scrape it, making sure you form a snow-like granita, breaking off any larger pieces of ice coffee with the back of the fork. Work the granita with the fork until the espresso has become smooth and homogenous and snow-like in appearance. Serve with a spoon.
Cover any leftovers with plastic wrap and place back in the freezer.
SWEET CREAM ICE CREAM
Helado de Nata
Ingredients:
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
⅔ cup sugar
A pinch of fine sea salt
4 large egg yolks
In a medium saucepan, simmer the cream, milk, sugar and salt until the sugar is completely dissolved, about 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat.
In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks. Slowly incorporate some of the hot cream into the yolks, while continuing to whisk. Add the yolk mixture back into the pot with the cream mixture. Return the pot to the stove and gently cook at medium-low heat until the mixture gets frothy and creamier, about 8 minutes.
Using a fine mesh sieve set over a bowl, strain the mixture and cool it to room temperature, about 1 hour (to speed up the process, you can set the bowl over an ice bath —a larger bowl filled with ice water).
Cover and place in the fridge for at least 4 hours. Churn the cream in an ice cream machine according to manufacturers’ instructions. Serve directly from the machine for soft ice cream, or store in the freezer until ready to serve.
