The weather may have convinced you otherwise, but it is, in fact, summer in Britain, which calls for frozen treats in abundance. Happily, London has a wealth of great ice-cream parlours these days, but nothing beats the satisfaction of making your own gelato. Kitty Travers started a homemade ice-cream revolution with her cookbook La Grotta Ices a few years ago, and now Gelupo, the Soho gelateria owned by the team behind Italian restaurant Bocca di Lupo, has launched its own indispensable guide to the world of gelato, semifreddo and granita. Below, author Jacob Kennedy shares three of his favourite recipes from Gelupo Gelato: a refreshing yet creamy mint stracciatella that’s ideal for dinner parties; a formula for turning Aperol and Campari into a boozy granita; and a family recipe for chocolate sauce so good it makes supermarket-bought vanilla feel wildly luxurious.
Mint Stracciatella
There is a big difference between the taste of fresh mint leaves and the taste of toothpaste. You cannot, as far as I know, buy a really good mint ice cream anywhere but in very few of the best ice-cream shops and gelaterie anywhere. The real deal is a refreshing breeze to make properly at home – all you need for a big mint flavour is a big bunch of mint. To keep it from oxidising (browning) in the gelato, the mint needs rapid blanching first, then rapid cooling to keep the flavour fresh. Before you start, ready yourself with a pan of unsalted boiling water and a bowl of iced water, too.
Stracciatella (meaning “raggedy”) is like a choc-chip, where molten chocolate is run through the gelato towards the end of its manufacture, creating fine chocolate shreds. You could omit the stracciatella for a plain mint gelato. But why would you?
Ingredients
For the base bianca:
- 130g granulated or caster sugar
- 40g skimmed milk powder
- 1 tsp locust bean gum powder OR 2 tbsps arrowroot or cornflour starch
- 640ml whole milk
- 40g glucose (aka dextrose) syrup or powder, or light runny honey
For the mint stracciatella gelato:
- 200g mint, with stalks
- 150ml double cream
- 50g dextrose powder or icing sugar
- 45g dark chocolate (70%), chopped
- 15g cocoa butter or coconut oil
Method
To make the base bianca:
- In a small bowl, stir the sugar, milk powder and stabiliser powder together thoroughly.
- Put the milk and glucose or runny honey in a saucepan. Heat gently until barely simmering.
- Pour the contents of the bowl into the warm milk mixture in a steady stream, stirring as you go. Continue to stir until the mixture just returns to the boil, then remove from the heat.
- Cover the pan and leave the base to cool to room or fridge temperature. (It will keep for up to 5 days in the fridge if allowed to cool, then refrigerated immediately.)
To make the mint stracciatella gelato:
- Have ready a large pan of boiling water and a bowl of iced water.
- Blanch the mint for literally 10 seconds in the boiling water (stalks and all), then drain and immediately refresh in the iced water.
- Drain the mint again and squeeze it dry.
- Blend the mint finely with the cream, dextrose powder or icing sugar and the base bianca, until it looks like a green paint.
- Strain the mixture through a sieve into a bowl, pressing to get all the goodness out. (Discard the contents of the sieve.)
- Transfer the verdant liquid to your ice-cream machine and churn until fully firm.
- While the gelato is churning, gently melt together the chocolate and cocoa butter or coconut oil in a bowl set over a small pan of simmering water. (Or, use a microwave on low.) Allow the melted chocolate mixture to cool almost to room temperature.
- When the gelato is as firm as you’d normally say it was ready, but certainly before it balls up on the paddle, pour in the chocolate in a steady stream with the ice-cream machine still running. The paddle will break the chocolate mixture into shards as it solidifies. A slower pour will yield finer strands; faster will be chunkier.
- Before serving, put the mint stracciatella in the freezer for half an hour or so to firm up. If it has been stored in the freezer longer and is too firm, allow it to soften in the fridge until scoopable.
Variations
- Substitute the mint with coriander, then use milk chocolate in place of dark.
- Substitute the mint with half the amount in basil and use white chocolate in place of dark.
- Omit the chocolate altogether – mint gelato without stracciatella is arguably just as nice, only different.
Aperol Granita
Aperitivo time – and the omnipresent spritz – is the Veneto’s gift to the world. You can make a great spritz with Aperol (the lurid orange one) or Campari, or perhaps best with Select. And every spritz has its corresponding granita – just use the recipe below and substitute the aperitivo of your choosing.
Ingredients
- 500ml prosecco (or dry white wine)
- 300ml Aperol
- 200ml water
- 100g caster sugar
Method
- In a bowl, stir all the ingredients together until the sugar has dissolved.
- Transfer the mixture to a wide dish and put it in the freezer. Once it starts to freeze at the edges, every 10-15 minutes stir it with a fork or whisk it, until the mixture is almost completely frozen and icy (this will take a long time – perhaps 4 hours). It is ready to serve in this slightly wet, slushy state.
- To keep it longer, let it freeze solid, then before serving take it out to thaw for 20 minutes or so, breaking it up with a fork. (Chill your serving glasses for at least 20 minutes in the freezer before you serve.)
Variations
- Substitute Campari or Aperitivo Select for the Aperol.
- Substitute white port, red Ruby port or medium sherry for the Aperol and then also replace the prosecco with tonic water.
- Replace both the Aperol and prosecco with sparkling Moscato d’Asti.
Grandpa’s Chocolate Sauce
This chocolate sauce is not only the only one ever worth making, but it has only one real ingredient: chocolate. My grandpa, John, used to pour it over vanilla ice cream or profiteroles. So do my parents, and so will my children. Really, Italians would rarely put anything over their gelato other than whipped cream – but some things (raspberry sorbet, coconut sorbet, and maybe hazelnut gelato) are great contrasted with chocolate sauce.
And, quite frankly, everyone likes it on most desserts, gelato included.
Ingredients per person
- 50g dark chocolate (70%), chopped
- 55ml water
- ½ tsp sugar (optional)
Method
- Tip the chocolate into a small saucepan. Add the water and warm the mixture over a very low heat, stirring until smooth. (Or, use a microwave on low, but take care: microwaves love to burn chocolate.)
- Taste it. If you want it sweeter, add a touch of sugar – ½ tsp or so per person.
- The sauce should be luscious and velvety. Use it barely warm. Very hot chocolate sauce is not all it’s cracked up to be – it melts gelato.
‘Gelupo Gelato’ by Jacob Kennedy (Bloomsbury) is out now. Illustrations by Märta Andrénfor
