A tasty and refreshing guilt free summer treat: Boozy peach lime homemade Italian ice with tipsy cherries is made with all natural ingredients, gluten-free, vegan and refined sugar free and is the perfect dessert to cool down in the summer. Just a handful of ingredients needed.
So this recipe started out as a sober PG rated smoothie, and then things took a turn. I was just renting an apartment in Portimão, Portugal (or should I say beach paradise) for 4 days and as luck would it, in the kitchen I stumbled upon an immersion blender with a mini food processor attachment.
Bingo!
MY LATEST VIDEOSIf you always get to cook in the comforts of your own fully equipped kitchen you couldn’t possibly understand what I’m dealing with when I travel for 6 months straight jumping from one poorly equipped kitchen to the next. So when I see an immersion blender with a mini food prep attachment I think smoothie.
A blender would be too much to ask for you see. So I thought I would surprise D with a delightful refreshing smooth summer smoothie. First thought: piña colada smoothie, but I’ve done that before – time for something new.
Well, it turns out a mini food prep attachment doesn’t quite have to ability to make things as smooth as your good old blender. Erh, time to shift gears. A smoothie needs to be super smooth, but what doesn’t?….. Italian ICE!
In D’s terms I also over did it on the lime, it was just too sour and limey for him. Well, time to turn this into something for me then.
So it should be no surprise that first thing I did was throw in a cup of wine into the mix. Why not? Summer and wine complement eachother nicely so time to share that wine happiness with other food categories.
Instead of a smoothie a new homemade Italian ice recipe was born. Italian ice, or water ice, shaved ice, however you call it. For a proper understanding of Italian ice, Wikipedia does a find job in their description: “Italian ice, also known as water ice is a sweetened frozen dessert made with fruit. Homemade Italian ice is not shaved ice that is flavored; rather, it is made by the same process by which ice cream is made: freezing the ingredients while mixing them. Homemade Italian ice is similar to sorbet but differs from American-style sherbet in that it does not contain dairy or egg ingredients, though it may contain egg white”
A bit of a tricky description, so I’ll just shorten that and say it’s cold, it’s refreshing, it’s perfect for summer. And you might get a light buzz off of it.
Vegan, gluten-free and refined sugar free too.
Sweet + lightly sour with a bit of creamy and alcoholic kick. We’re talking pureed peaches, lime juice + zest, a bit of coconut cream, water and red wine. Blend together and pop into a freeze safe container. Check on it every few hours and once it starts to solidify, start scraping it with a spoon.
Scrape a bit, place back in the freeze and repeat a couple more time at hour increments. Or just start eating it directly from the container.
While that’s freezing get your drunk cherries ready. With your handy cherry pitter, which you might have in that well stocked kitchen, and which I definitely do not carry with me in my 30 liter backpack, start removing those pits. Or get your knife skills ready. As a last and laziest resort, just bite directly into the cherries and remove the pit – though this might be best reserved for occasions where you won’t be serving this to your dinner guests.
Char those red cherry bits in a hot pan on high heat until you can almost hear then sizzling,then add a bit of red wine and let it reduce. Pop in the freeze to chill.
Assemble the homemade Italian ice in a tall glass topped with drunken cherries and a bit of lime zest.
A tasty and refreshing guilt free summer treat.
tasty and refreshing guilt free summer treat: Boozy peach lime homemade Italian ice with tipsy cherries is made with all natural ingredients, gluten-free, vegan and refined sugar free and is the perfect dessert to cool down in the summer. Just a handful of ingredients needed.
- 2 large peaches pit removed, and chopped
- 1 small lime zest and juice
- 1/4 - 1/2 cup red wine
- 1/4 - 1/2 cup coconut cream
- 1/4 cup water
- For the tipsy cherries:
- 1 cup cherries pitted and quartered
- 2-4 tablespoons red wine
- In a blender combine peaches, lime zest, juice, (1/4-1/2 cup) red wine, coconut cream and water. Puree until smooth. Place in a freezer safe container and freeze.
- Check on the mixture every hour and when starting to harden scrape with a spoon, until fluffed up, like Italian ice.
- Continue to do so every hour until frozen and ready to eat.
- For the cherries heat pan over medium-high heat and once hot add the cherries. Cook cherries until charred, add 2-4 tablespoons red wine and cook until reduced.
- Serve Boozy Peach Lime Italian Ice topped with tipsy cherries.
For a sweeter Italian ice, add up to 2 tablespoons of your sweetener of choice (maple syrup, agave, etc)
Rachel says
Can’t wait to make this!