Italian Ice Cream

Italian ice cream (also known as granite, granite, Italian water ice, or water ice in areas with large Italian-American populations) is a frozen dessert made up of mixing flavorings (typically fruit juices but also coffee and chocolate) with ice. Italian ice, unlike shaved ice products, is normally smooth. The flavors are typically mixed into the ice cream while it is being made rather then being added at the point of sale, the process which is common for the shaved ices. Italian Ice on the other hand it is often made up of pure water, sugar cane, and natural flavors with a special freeze blending machine technique. Also Italian ice is the stored at almost 20 Degrees below freezing and then served optimally at 10 or 15 degrees warmer than it is stored. The most common method four parts of water quickly boiled, with one part sugar, and then somewhere between two and three parts juice or pulp source. Home made Granite could be made with a hand blender with this method, but some have had better experience with an ice creamer maker.

Italian ice is frequently sold from street stands which is an inexpensive treat.This chilled cream, from Artusi, is quite similar in some ways to pane cotta.

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups water
1/4 cup sugar
4 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 sheets fish glue or a packet of unsweetened gelatin for thickening.

Steps

Set the ingredients on the fire, and stir them constantly until the cream begins to stick to the spoon (as opposed to running off freely). Remove the cream from the fire and whip it; should it take too long to do so, set the pot on ice, and whip in, a little at a time, two sheets of fish glue (or a packet of unflavored gelatin prepared according to the directions on the packet) dissolved in a drop of boiling water.