On a recent trip to the grocery store, I discovered an ice cream flavour that was totally new to me, baklava. Since I’m living in North Africa along the Mediterranean it’s not really a surprising flavour to find, but it is unique for sure. The ice cream itself is interesting, it combines pistachio ice cream with several ingredients found in baklava.
Most of the ingredients worked fairly well, in particular the syrup swirled throughout was great, as was the crunch base. The filo pieces mixed in and sprinkled on the top were okay, but also a little soggy. They also didn’t add much to the flavour. If I was to try and improve this ice cream I would say more filo dough, maybe a few layers of it between the ice cream. I’m also not a huge fan of pistachio ice cream, but in this context it was much improved.
This ice cream was a nice little treat, but it was also a source of inspiration. It inspired me to think about how many desserts one finds in the ice cream isle. I’m not talking about ice cream cakes, or any frozen cakes, I’m thinking specifically of ice cream flavour based on desserts. Off the top of my head I can’t think of too many of them. Honestly, I don’t know if I can think of one specifically, but I just feel like I’ve seen some before.
I’m very certain I’ve seen dessert themed ice cream at ice cream parlours. In particularly the fancy ice cream parlours that make their own ice cream. While I’m sure there have been a few, I’m surprised that dessert themed ice cream flavours are not more common. Probably the closest thing that comes to mind are ice creams that features bits of cookie in them. While it’s kind of dessert flavoured, I wouldn’t really call it themed. I’d like to be proven wrong on this, so if you know a good dessert themed ice cream that you can get at the grocery store, let me know.
Now it wouldn’t be fair for me to just complain about this without offering a few suggestions. So here are a few ideas I think might work really well:
Cheesecake – A creamy ice cream, creamier than most so it feels like cheesecake. I’m not sure if it’s possible, but if you could even get the tart flavour of cream cheese that would be great. Then, swirl in some strawberry syrup. Finally, a layer or two of graham cracker crumbs would give this a little texture and really keep it on theme.
Apple Pie – Now I feel like someone has made an ice cream with apple pie in it, but I’m thinking more about an apple pie ice cream. This would probably feel more like an ice cream cake, but I think the key would be to keep the crusts as layers instead of just pieces. You could have a nice cinnamon/vanilla ice cream with apple pie filling swirled throughout. Then you could have a layer of pie crust on the top and bottom. If the bottom is too complicated at least the top would be good. Frozen cooked pie crust is actually pretty good, so I think it would work really well.
Carrot Cake – This one might be a little divisive, but if done well I think it would work really well. Again, I’m not just talking about filling this ice cream with pieces of carrot cake either. I would say take a super creamy ice cream (maybe the same one you used for the cheesecake) and add some of the ingredients from carrot cake. The carrot cake spices would be key, cinnamon and cloves for sure. Also adding some walnuts, raisins and yes... shaved carrots. I don’t think you’d want to add carrot to the ice cream as that might be too much, but strings of shaved carrots might actually work.
I’m sure there are other desserts that might be tasty in ice cream form and I’m glad that I got to sample this fun baklava ice cream to get inspired.
