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Caramel

You’ll see salted caramel in everything nowadays, from sauces to sweets, ice creams to drinks, desserts to lip balms, and more. We just can’t get enough. But, of course, we’re not averse to innovation.

Inspired by our modern-day patisserie-hero, Dominique Ansel, aka Monsieur Cronut® (who now has bakeries in New York, Tokyo and London), the cookery team at Olive HQ got to thinking about what other ingredients could make a classic caramel even better. Dominique has experimented with caramels made using muscovado sugar, clover honey and pomegranate molasses to drizzle on homemade vanilla ice cream.

We wanted something seasonal and fresh to mark the arrival of this year’s first, sweet, British raspberries. And so we came up with this beauty – the natural sweetness of the sharp Italian vinegar works brilliantly with the zing of the soft fruit. It works! Give it a go…


Ingredients

Granita

  • 150g sugar
  • 2 tbsp raspberry liqueur or sloe gin
  • 500g raspberries
  • 1 lemon, juiced

Balsamic caramel

To serve

  • vanilla ice cream, (check the label if you're gluten-free)

Method

  • STEP 1

    Start by making the granita. In a small pan, heat the sugar with 200ml of water over a medium heat and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from the heat and stir in the raspberry liqueur, then allow to cool.
    In a food processor, blitz the raspberries with the lemon juice, then add to the cooled sugar syrup. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve, mashing with the back of a spoon to push the pulp through. Add to a freezer-proof container or baking dish and freeze, churning with a fork every 30 minutes, until it’s frozen solid.

  • STEP 2

    For the caramel, add the caster sugar to a pan and cook over a medium heat, swirling the pan regularly until the sugar turns to liquid and is a deep caramel colour.
    Remove from the heat and carefully pour in the cream while whisking. Allow to cool to room temperature and stir through the balsamic vinegar.

  • STEP 3

    Flake the granita with a fork and scatter generously over a scoop of vanilla ice cream with a good drizzle of the caramel.

This will make more granita than you’ll need, but it will keep happily in the freezer for three months. The granita is gluten-free, but, if you need to, remember to check the ice-cream label.

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