Frozen Lemonade Slush with Real Lemon Ice

By Sprig Originals ✓ · cooked up in Sprig

A thick, spoonable frozen lemonade that tastes like sour-sweet fresh lemons instead of watery ice. The trick is freezing the finished lemonade itself into cubes — sugar keeps them soft, so a regular blender whips them into dense slush with no dilution at all. A zest-and-sugar rub pulls the fragrant oils out of the peel, and a few spoons of chopped lemon flesh give it those little pulpy bits you get at a summer stand.

Ingredients

• 6 large lemons (about 2 lb), well scrubbed
• 1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1/8 tsp fine sea salt

• 1 cup fresh lemon juice (from the zested lemons, plus 1–2 more if needed)
• 2 cup cold water
• 2 tbsp chopped lemon flesh, seeds and membrane removed (optional, for pulpy bits)

• 4 thin lemon wheels
• paper straws and long spoons

Instructions

1. Zest 4 of the lemons directly into a medium bowl with the sugar, taking only the yellow peel and none of the white pith. Rub the zest into the sugar with your fingertips for 30 seconds, until the sugar looks damp and smells strongly of lemon. Let it sit 20 to 30 minutes; the sugar will draw the fragrant oils out of the peel.
2. Scrape the lemon sugar into a small saucepan, add 1 cup water and the salt, and warm over medium heat, stirring, just until the sugar fully dissolves — about 3 to 5 minutes. Do not let it boil. Remove from the heat and let stand 10 minutes to steep.
3. Meanwhile, halve and juice all the lemons to get 1 cup fresh juice (squeeze another lemon or two if you come up short). Strain out the seeds but leave the fine pulp in — it helps the slush hold together. If you want pulpy bits, cut 2 tablespoons of clean lemon flesh from a spent half, discarding seeds and tough membrane, and chop it fine.
4. Pour the warm syrup through a fine-mesh strainer into a pitcher, pressing on the zest to get every drop, then discard the zest. Stir in the lemon juice and 2 cups cold water. You should have about 4 cups of very intense lemonade. Taste: it should be aggressively sweet-tart, since freezing mutes both. Add up to 2 tablespoons more sugar or 1 tablespoon more juice to balance.
5. Reserve 1/2 cup of the lemonade in a small covered jar and refrigerate it. Divide the rest between two standard ice cube trays and freeze until firm at the edges and thick in the middle, 4 to 6 hours or overnight. Because of the sugar, the cubes will never freeze rock hard — that is exactly what you want.
6. Pop all the cubes into a blender, add the chilled reserved 1/2 cup lemonade and the chopped lemon flesh, and blend on low, then medium, stopping to scrape down and push the cubes toward the blades with a tamper or spatula (blender off) as needed. Blend 45 to 90 seconds total, just until it turns into a thick, smooth, pourable-but-spoonable slush the texture of soft sorbet.
7. Immediately pile into 4 chilled 8-ounce glasses, notch a lemon wheel onto each rim, and serve with both a straw and a spoon. If it slumps while you are serving, park the glasses in the freezer for 10 minutes to firm back up.

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Nutrition (per serving, estimated)

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