Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Coffee Granita

Summer is here and it's time once again to point and laugh at idiot hipsters, d-bags, and 80% of people in general for buying overpriced coffee smoothies made from the lowest quality crap coffee mixed with tap water ice cubes, and sugared lard. That abomination, is of course, the Starbucks Frappuchino.

The Frappuchino: a bunch of poorly made liquid coffee spun with giant ice chunks made from tap water that only get slightly smaller in a blender; The Granita on the other hand is a delicate ice structure made out of coffee itself. Coming off in long immensely thin sheets of tiny ice crystals, the granita's texture and versatility have made it a favorite among the patrons of fine European coffee houses who can speak more languages than you ...and are thinner that you too.... ya fatass.


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Pinky Street Summer Wars special edition picked up at Tokyo Kid, in Harvard Square.


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Many a granita recipe involves using an ice cream machine or coming back to the freezer every 2 seconds to agitate the coffee as it freezes. But pouring coffee into an ice cream machine is a 2 step process that is too short to make an episode out of, and coming back to the freezer over and over again is dumb (sorry Alton). As you will see, the small spaces of the ice tray combined with a small bit of unfreezable ethanol will create an enjoyable crystalline structure without the annoying extra steps.

If you don't remember how to make coffee, go check out our coffee episode. Remember; if you use cheap ass bad coffee, this is gonna taste like frozen cheap ass bad coffee. We recommend you go here to the website and online-store of D'Amico Coffee Roasters for all your roasted coffee needs.

You will want to add sugar or the alternative sweetener of your choice to your coffee before it becomes cold. Or if you are going to make many drinks all with different levels of sweetness, you can make some sugar syrup and have it on hand, so that you can add it to items that are cold or frozen, without the problem of the sugar not dissolving.


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*It is a must to add a small amount of flavor extracts such as Vanilla, Almond, Mint, whatever and the MUST be 35% alcohol or higher. You can also throw in Kahlua, Rum, Bourbon, almost any flavor Liqueur, Das Komet vanilla schnapps, or Vodka (which adds no flavor). The only things you wouldn't wanna add are Gin, sherry/vermouths or Jagermeister. This is because alcohol won't freeze in this, and you need a little bit in there to get in between the water to prevent large ice chunks forming which would make this tough and grainy like a bad margarita.

If you have some religious stick up your ass and seriously can't handle alcohol in that uber-small proportion (FYI if you eat a ripe banana your body makes alcohol in higher concentrations than this is going to have), then add 2-3 oz of heavy cream and a tiny pinch of salt. The fatty oils will have the same effect.


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This bar-fight actually happened. No I was not involved.

Whipped cream. (Seriously, are there people who don't know how to do this?) ...There are light and heavy versions. Almost every time you see whipped cream on Pinky Mixology, it's going to be Chantilly Cream, which is almost like doughnut stuffing. Because we're hard core like that. Here's a link to a video of a Frenchman showing you how it's done.


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You might not wanna google santorum if you're currently consuming anything frappuchino colored. Use Bing to search for santorum instead.

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Seriously, fuck the metric system with Santorum.

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Penguin Santorum Penguin Santorum Penguin Santorum Penguin Santorum Penguin Santorum

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Now you can control the amount of sugar and fat that gets in your frozen treats. From low-cal no sugar added versions to insane versions that could contain bacon for all we care. The cafe granita has been around long before the frozen disasters started flowing out of coffee chains donut shops, and burger joints.

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Next on Pinky Mixology:
Know Your Stuff: Infusions



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