Coffee and Brown Sugar Granita with Whipped Cream

When it comes to dessert, if you feel like you’re always sacrificing elegance for low effort, maybe you just haven’t found the right treat. Enter this coffee and brown sugar granita with whipped cream from Letitia Clark’s cookbook, La Vita e Dolce. It has that air of pinkies-out sophistication but requires just five ingredients to make.

“Every morning I make a Moka coffee pot for six people,” Clark writes, “and drink my way through half of it before the anxiety hits and my heart rate soars. At that point I think it’s probably a good idea to stop drinking it—but it seems a cruel waste to throw it away, so instead I save it in a pot in the fridge and use it later for making this granita.” (Psst: Granita is kind of like a snow cone or slushie, but for adults.)

“I add a little Amaretto to the whipped cream,” she continues, “because I love that retro almond whiff it gives, but you can leave it out. You can also top this with grated dark chocolate or cocoa powder and serve with amaretti.”

Oh, and if you don’t have a Moka pot, she suggests you nicely ask your local barista to make you a batch of espressos to take home.

_{Recipe excerpted with permission from La Vita e Dolce by Letitia Clark, published by Hardie Grant.}