Frozen Dessert

Like raspberries and chocolate, pomegranate and chocolate make a very sexy couple, and they give this sorbet a little more body and interest than your basic fruit flavors. Its sweet-tart flavor is refreshing on a hot day, and the mint syrup has a real cooling effect.

Mascarpone cheese gives this dessert a smooth, creamy texture, making it more like a sherbet than an ordinary granita. Best of all, you don’t need to scrape it as it freezes to create icy granules, so it’s truly a snap to make. Serve it with tiny glasses of limoncello for a perfect summer dessert.

If you have an ice cream machine, this is one of the fastest, easiest, most satisfying desserts you can make.

A special combination, decidedly Asian. Use fresh ginger if at all possible.

Unlike almost every other frozen dessert, granitas take no special equipment. They do take some time, however, and do not keep well, so timing is important. Figure two to three hours for this, start to finish.

The French brought ice cream to Asia, but it took the Asians to make it with ginger. I like it with a double dose, both fresh and candied. Even when made with milk, this is extremely rich ice cream, the best I know how to make. If you would like something a little lighter, add another cup of milk, half-and-half, or cream after making the custard.

Like most sorbet recipes, this one is infinitely easier to make if you have an ice cream machine. The key is to serve it as soon as you can after making it—it does not keep well and in fact is best the day it is made—and, if necessary, “warming” it slightly in the refrigerator before serving.

This is quite possibly the simplest dessert “recipe” imaginable: vanilla ice cream doused with coffee. The dessert probably originated in Turin, an important city for both coffee and ice cream, and is served in bars there all over town.

I picked up this simple, delicious, and very Italian cake on a visit to Angelo Brocato’s ice cream and confectionery in New Orleans. I am sure you will want to make this dessert over and over again. If you are going to freeze it, keep the taste fresh by wrapping it tightly in plastic.

Incassare in Italian means “to put in a box,” and in this case the boxing consists of flavored ricotta in a light sponge cake, often decorated with candied fruits and chocolate. It is a dessert that, once filled and sealed, keeps well for a few days. That is why Italian American restaurants had it on the menu: low maintenance with good flavors. This versatile dessert can be filled with various flavors of ice cream, so try substituting that in place of the ricotta filling (in which case you will have to keep the cake in the freezer). Sicilian in origin, cassata is most easily found in areas of America that experienced a large influx of Sicilian immigrants, such as New Orleans.

Lemon ice is simple and delicious and very Italian. This recipe was given to me by Maria at Carm’s in Chicago. It was not too sweet, with a nice tartness, and a bit slushy when she served it to me; I loved it.

Prickly pears—or fichi d’India, as they are called in Italy—grow wild and abundant in Sicily and are eaten simply as a fruit, as a salad, or churned into a dessert, as in this recipe for granita. In the Southwestern United States, the prickly pear grows abundant and wild, and when I visited the Salinas Valley in California, I was delighted to see acres upon acres of this cactus plant growing for commercial harvesting. The Mexican culture uses it in their cuisine, but I was especially happy to see a demand for it here in the States. When you find it nice and ripe in your market, buy it and make this simple and delicious granita with it.

Spumoni is a delicious dessert made from three flavors of ice cream stuffed into a cup, and cut in four when frozen. The ice-cream colors reflect the colors of the Italian flag—red, white, and green—and spumoni has long been a big item on the menus of Italian American restaurants. Spumoni has its origins in a Neapolitan dessert, and supposedly came to America in 1905 with Salvatore Lezza. Lezza’s spumoni can still be had on Chicago’s Upper West Side. I filled many a cup with my own homemade ice cream in my early restaurant days, in the seventies, but spumoni is still delicious when made with good store-bought ice cream as well. Here rum gives the spumoni an extra layer of flavor, but the juice of the sour cherries is a great alternative.

The “cream” in this popular dish is actually a simple stovetop custard that is firm enough, when chilled, to cut into small blocks, coat with bread crumbs, and fry. Crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside, it is served in many regions of Italy. In some places, crema fritta is considered a savory, as in Emilia, where it is part of the fritto misto. But in Naples, I had crema fritta as a dolce, and I hope you enjoy this wonderful sweet.

“Terrine” is the name given to a specific mold commonly used in French cuisine, but its definition has changed over time. I like to play around and use different molds shaped like triangles, ovals, and rectangles. I love the vibrant color of the hibiscus flower and I think its tart flavor complements many other fruits. I chose these particular flavors because they go quite nicely together and because I’ve always thought different shades of one color suggest a subtle elegance.

The city of Oaxaca has some of the best frozen treats in Mexico, despite the fact it isn’t located right near the coast. This particular recipe is adapted from one given to me by Dinorah Allende, a beautiful woman who owns Chagüita, a delicious nevería that has been around for five generations. Be sure to buy culinary-grade rose petals from a trusted source that doesn’t use any pesticides or chemicals (the smaller petals have the most intense flavor), and get the highest-quality milk possible.

The light granular texture of this tasty ice cream is what makes me love it so much. Swirl in some cajeta toward the end of the churning or top it with some berries if you want to add a complementary flavor, though I think it is perfect just as it is.