Watermelon granita

Summers where I live are hot for months on end, so there is nothing more refreshing than a nice piece of cold watermelon, taken out of the fridge. An instant cooling and thirst quenching effect.  This recipe came about from a watermelon I bought which I left on the counter-top for a couple of weeks and by the time I opened it to eat it had gone a bit too ripe. By that I mean that it had all the sweet taste by the texture was no longer juicy and crunchy, it had gone grainy and soft. So as I don’t like throwing things away, I used half of it to make ice lollies and granita. I would have just made ice lollies but there was too much for the 6 molds I have, so I decided to use the rest to make granita. All it takes is taking out of the freezer every few hours, and scratching with a fork to prevent it from freezing in one block. So easy, so rewarding.

Note: The extra sugar is added because we tend to taste sweetness less on frozen foods, which is why ice creams have so much sugar. If your watermelon is not that sweet you may need a little more sugar.

• Peel and de-seed enough watermelon until you have about 1kg
• Place in a large bowl and blend with a hand blender
• Add the icing sugar and lemon and pulse until everything is mixed
• If making ice lollies pour into molds and freeze for at least 6 hours until set solid
• If making granita pour into a shallow container (you may need 2) and freeze for about 4 hours, then scratch with a fork to prevent big solid ice pieces, and repeat every few hours 2 or 3 more times.