Pink Champagne Granita With Pomegranate

BY: VANESSA ROBERTS

This oh-too-pretty champagne concoction caught my eye on Pinterest, and I was determined to find out exactly how to re-create this for the holiday season! Created by Mary of Made By Mary (beautiful blog by the way), this easy-yet-impressive-looking dessert/granita is THE perfect accompaniment to festivities this Spring, or a girls night in.

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Image: http://madebymary.se/

If you make it, let me know if you enjoyed it in the comments below!

Recipe (serves 6-8)

750 ml dry pink champagne or sparkling wine*
1.25 cups granulated sugar
1.25 cups water
0.85 cups of cold water
1 Pomegranate

*NOTE: Do not use a sweet or sparkling wine/champagne. These can have too much sugar, and/or too high of an alcohol percentage meaning the dessert/granita will not freeze. You should use a sparkling wine/champagne with less than 10 grams of sugar per litre.

Instructions:

Pour granulated sugar and the larger amount of water in a medium saucepan.
Cut the pomegranate in half and take out all the seeds. (Google best way of doing so if you do not know how to get them out. Note: do not put the pomegranate underwater to get the seeds out as you will loose a lot of the fruit juices necessary for the syrup).
Add all the seeds and the fruit juice from the pomegranate and put the saucepan on medium high heat.
Bring to a boil and let boil for about 3 minutes.
Strain the syrup through a fine sieve.
Press the pomegranate seeds against the bottom of the strainer so that as much juice as possible can form the syrup.
Let the syrup cool completely and then add the champagne and the cool water.
Be sure to blend thoroughly with a spoon without whisking the Granita mixture.
Pour into a freeze-proof pan (a lasagna pan or a brownie pan is great to use.) Do NOT use a soft plastic pan as this will make it harder to get nice fine crystals.)
Let it sit in the freezer at least 8 hours, preferably overnight.

You can prepare this the day before.

Serving:

Pop some martini or margarita glasses in the freezer for a few minutes to cool.
Take a fork and scrape out the Granita crystals by scratching with the fork.
Scoop up the Granita crystals with a cold spoon and fill the cold glasses with nice and pink crystals.
Garnish with mint or a delicate flower.
Serve right away!