Another citric jewel from the Sicilian Family!
ingredients for about 6 servings (total cost about 2 € with organic products)
- 1 liter freshly squeezed orange juice, filtered
- 70 g wheat starch
- 100 g sugar or more according to taste and the sweetness of the oranges
- a pinch of salt
- a handful of candied orange peels
- a few cardamom seeds, slightly crushed
- chopped candied orange peels to garnish & a little extra crushed cardamom
The jellies acquire their body and texture with the addition of a thickening agent. The Sicilians traditionally use wheat starch as a thickener (amido di frumento or frumina, as they call it), which is very resistant to liquefaction and offers a special compactness.
Cornstarch (maizena) can be used instead, although its flaw is that it is more sensitive to liquefaction, thus the geli tend to leak after one day in the fridge. Therefore, if you can find frumina, it is the best choice. Just keep in mind that, frumina is more powerful in terms of thickening ability and produces more dense geli, compared to cornstarch. So, if using frumina, then add only 7% of the juice’s weight, instead of the 8% ratio, that we use with cornstarch. If you like the gelo to be more creamy-like, then you can lower the ratio even more, that is for cornstarch use 7% and for frumina 6%.
To make the orange gelo, we bring 8/10 of the filtered orange juice to a boil along with the crushed cardamom seeds, the orange peels and the sugar. When it reaches the boiling point, we remove from the heat, cover with cling film and let it infuse for about 30min.
We sieve the maizena or frumina into a bowl suitable for bain – marie, we add the rest 2/8 of the orange juice and whisk, until the powder dissolves completely. Then we strain the infused juice, we add it to the bowl with the dissolved starch and we insert the bowl in a pot filled half way with gently boiling water (water should not touch the bottom of the bowl). We cook at medium heat stirring with a whisk, until it begins to thicken and we end up with a fine velvety cream.
We remove the bowl from the bain marie and we taste to control sweetness. If not sweet enough, we can add some icing sugar (it dissolves more easily), whisk and taste again, until we reach the desired sweetness. We continue whisking a little more to help the “gelo” cool a bit, then we transfer to individual serving glasses or ramekins or silicon moulds, we let it cool for a while, then we cover with cling film and we keep in the fridge until serving time (at least 4 hours). It is better if consumed the next day!
Before serving, we sprinkle with finely chopped candied orange peels (see HERE how to make them) and an extra pinch of crashed cardamom.
