National Ice Cream Day: Chefs share weird experiments with ice creams

Weird ice cream flavours are all the rage these days and are especially being talked about in social media. While some of these flavours got approval by people the others left them furious. Samosa ice cream, toilet roll ice cream to masala dosa ice creams were successful in creating ripples across the web world even though the intention could be more to garner eyeballs than treating taste buds of people. However, the jury is still out if ‘weird’ in the world of ice cream is here to stay or will remain just a fad. In many London stores unexpected flavours – soy sauce, ketchup, baked beans are being tried by food lovers to surprise their taste buds perhaps. Thanks to the buzz created by social media, people seem to be curious to try these weird flavours. (Also read: National Ice Cream Day 2023: Tips and tricks to give your ice cream a healthy makeover)

On National Ice Cream (July 16), which is celebrated every year on the third Sunday of the month of July, we asked chefs about their adventures with weird flavours of ice creams and this is what we got:

1. Rasam litchi ice cream sundae by Chef Sonia Sarpal

My husband is an ice cream lover. We had been eating South Indian since the past 4 days and he wanted to try a love/hate dessert. Inspired by Instagram’s ice cream momos, gulab jamun samosa, we planned to do something with the leftover rasam and litchi ice cream. So, we made a blend. Frankly speaking, we didn’t really love it but didn’t really hate it also. It was the deadliest combo of hot and cold rasam litchi ice cream sundae!

2. Garlic ice cream by Chef Vikram Arora, Culinary Director and founder of Nksha Restaurant, Churchgate

One of the weirdest ice cream that I could thought was garlic ice cream which is very unusual ice cream flavour that combines the sweet creaminess of traditional ice cream with the pungent taste of garlic.

The recipe for garlic ice cream involves blending roasted garlic cloves with an ice cream base, which consists of cream, milk, sugar, and sometimes eggs. The garlic flavour can vary depending on the quantity of garlic used and whether it is roasted or added raw. Other ingredients like vanilla may be added to balance out the pungency of the garlic and enhance the taste.

3. Filter coffee gelato by Chef Sagar Phansekar, The Blue Bop Café

We created a silky-smooth coffee gelato that offers the rich, aromatic flavour of freshly brewed coffee. Just as freshly brewed coffee is more aromatic when it’s made with freshly ground beans, coffee gelato is exponentially better when you make it with freshly ground beans. This coffee bean gelato is made with lightly crushed coffee beans, which slowly infuse the gelato custard overnight. The aroma this technique produces is richer and fuller and the flavour is smoother.