Espresso Granita Affogato Recipe

In terms of desserts, it doesn’t get much easier than this.

Affogato means ‘drowned’ in Italian, and any frozen dessert can meet this fate by tippling a little liquor or coffee over it. Classically, espresso is poured over Vanilla Ice Cream, but you’d have to be pretty hard-core to pour espresso over Espresso Granita. If I did that, I’d be ricocheting off the walls around here.

And because I live on the roof, I’m one caffeine-fueled tumble away from meeting my maker. Not my coffee-maker, mind you.
And we wouldn’t want that to happen, now. Would we?

I still have so much to accomplish…like tackling those chocolate marshmallows…

So instead of the usual dousing with espresso, I put the icy crystals on the bottom and I’m pouring a dose of Baileys on top, which the French pronounce Bay-layze. Since we’re on strike around here, I figured I should be too, and offer this simple holiday dessert that can be made faster than it takes to find a Vélib’ bike around Paris this week. They’re all gone; everyone rented them for the week and locked them away. Which I guess means I don’t have to go to work, except I work on the sofa and in my kitchen.

Some strike, David.

That’s my week, searching Paris for bikes and pulling long shots of espresso, coupled with the biting cold that had me rifling through my closets in search of my long-lost scarves and mittens—yes, I’m the only grown man that wears mittens in Paris. Stop laughing. I get enough of that around here.

But no ones laughing at me when they taste this extra-icy delicious dessert. Of course, using espresso is the way to go and if you don’t have an espresso-maker, take note that I’m as happy as a vongole with my trusty Bialetti, which does double-duty in my dessert kitchen as well as brewing up my morning café au lait.

I’ve got one of those big-ass machines, but it takes up 6/9th’s of my kitchen and man cannot bake, or live on, espresso alone.

If you do want to do the opposite of what I’m doing—and you wouldn’t be the first—go ahead and make a favorite ice cream or sherbet, like Vanilla or Lemon or White Chocolate, and spill a bit of warm espresso over it.

Then pass the spoons.

Now I’m off to slip on my mittens and search for a bike. At least this week I’m fueled by lots of espresso.

Oh. And the occasional shot of liquor doesn’t hurt either.