Baked Sunday Mornings: Lemon Lime Champagne Granita

Being the teetotaler that I am, I was not looking forward to this week's Baked Sunday Mornings recipe, Lemon Lime Champagne Granita. This recipe appears in the "Lemon and Lime" chapter of Baked Elements and not the "Booze" chapter; the headnote explains that the champagne is just a background player in this dessert and lemon and lime are the real stars. As a result, Matt and Renato say that the recipe works just as well with "no-name discount" champagne as with a premium brand -- and Tom was all too happy to get rid of a bottle of cheap champagne that we had lying around.

The recipe is incredibly simple. You mix together lime zest, lime juice, lemon zest, lemon juice, champagne, mint leaves, and simple syrup, and pour the mixture into a metal pan. You cover the pan, put it in the freezer, and then periodically pull it out and break up the ice crystals by stirring and scraping it with a fork. Once it's totally frozen, the granita is ready to serve.

It will not surprise anyone who knows me to hear that I thought this granita was terrible. I could get not past the alcoholic taste. To me, it was a frozen lemon-lime cocktail -- in other words, something I would never, ever, want to consume. However, my husband Tom was a big fan of the granita precisely because he thought it tasted like a cocktail. He said it reminded him of a sparkling limoncello cocktail, and he liked the fact that it wasn't very sweet.

I'm not in a position to be able to fairly judge the taste, but I will give the granita an A+ for texture and ease of preparation.

Recipe: "Lemon Lime Champagne Granita" from Baked Elements: Our 10 Favorite Ingredients, by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito. Recipe available here at Baked Sunday Mornings.