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The stranger end of the list
Crazy Ice Cream Flavours: Ten Strange and Wild Combinations Worth Trying
Ice cream season has here. Ten flavours that sound like a dare and turn out to have a reason, plus the ones that really are just a dare.
Where crazy ice cream flavours come from
Ten entries, in the order they usually appear on a tasting flight.
- 01
Sounds like a dare
The name is doing the work, and the board is daring you to read past it.
- 02
Has a mechanism
Salt, fat, bitterness or texture. One of the four, or it is decoration.
- 03
Finishes clean
The oddity should fade before the sweetness does, not after it.
Strange is not the same as difficult.
The honest disclaimer:a few of these are hard to find outside the city that invented them, and one or two are seasonal. A board carrying all ten at once is either very good or not telling the truth.
Ice cream season has here! Have you had enough of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry? It’s probably high time you tried different new flavours that don’t get boring so quickly and you can enjoy a new flavour every day. Much like the thrill of spinning the wheel at the best roulette sites, it can be exhilarating to stray from the beaten path and try something new. There’s always something more interesting to try like toffee crumble ice cream. Here are ten strange flavors we found.
The strange end of the list
Ten crazy ice cream flavours, then, in the order a tasting flight usually arrives in. Strange ice cream flavours are easier to judge in a row than one at a time, because the combinations start to explain each other.
Crazy ice cream flavours cluster into two kinds, and strange ice cream flavours of both kinds turn up on the same board. The first kind takes something from a savoury kitchen and finds that it was sweet all along, which is what happens with roast garlic, sweetcorn and beetroot. The second kind takes a familiar sweet and pushes one element until it changes character, which is what burnt caramel and charred coconut do. Both are worth ordering, and both are combinations rather than single oddities. Neither is a joke.
Caramel with salt and pepper belongs to the second kind. Salted caramel stopped being unusual years ago, and the pepper is what keeps it interesting: it arrives after the sweetness rather than with it, so the scoop finishes warm instead of cloying. Served with a waffle and a few flakes of Maldon, it is the least strange of these strange ice cream flavours and the best place to start.
Wild combinations that still make sense
Ash from coconut looks like a stunt and is not. Charring coconut concentrates its sugars and adds a bitter edge, and the grey colour is the honest result rather than a dye. Candied cranberries with pine needle is stranger still, and it works for the same reason a gin and tonic works: resin and sharp fruit belong together.
Strawberry with olive oil is the wild combination people argue about most, and the argument is usually settled by one spoonful. The oil carries the berry further and stops it tasting thin, which is the same trick that makes olive oil and sea salt worth ordering on its own. Tea party, built on a strong smoky brew, does the opposite: it uses tannin to dry the finish.
Taro closes the flight, and it is proof that crazy ice cream flavours do not have to be difficult. It is faintly nutty, faintly vanilla, pale lilac without help, and it is the one on this list that a child will finish without asking questions. Every wild board needs one entry like that.
The ten, in order
mildadventurous
Each with the one thing it is doing that a plain scoop cannot.
Start here
3 flavours
The three that convert people.
- Caramel with salt and pepper
- Strawberry and olive oil
- Toffee crumble
Go further
4 flavours
Stranger, and still built on a real idea.
- Ash from coconut
- Candied cranberries and pine needle
- Tea party
- Black sesame and honey
The deep end
3 flavours
Order these when the first two groups have stopped surprising you.
- Taro
- Roast garlic
- Miso caramel
Questions about the crazy list
Asked at the counter, usually while holding up the queue.
Are crazy ice cream flavours actually good, or just a talking point?
Both exist, and they are easy to tell apart. If the unusual ingredient changes how the scoop finishes, it is doing work. If it only changes the colour or gives the photograph a subject, it is a talking point. Salt, fat, acid and bitterness all change the finish; food dye does not.
Which of the ten is the safest order?
Caramel with salt and pepper. It is one step past salted caramel, which almost everyone already likes, and the pepper is a finish rather than a shock. Toffee crumble is the other safe choice, since its strangeness is texture rather than taste.
Why is coconut ash grey?
Because the coconut has been charred rather than coloured. Charring drives off water, concentrates the sugars and leaves a bitter edge, and the grey is simply what that looks like. A version that is grey without tasting of smoke has been dyed.
Is olive oil in ice cream an Italian idea?
It is strongly associated with Italian gelaterias, and the logic behind it is the same one behind every good gelato: fat carries flavour. Argentine boards use egg yolk and cream to the same end, which is covered on the Argentinian ice cream page.
Do strange flavours melt differently?
The unusual ingredient rarely changes the melt, but its base often does. Anything built as a sorbet melts faster and thinner than a dairy scoop, and a high-fat savoury base holds its shape longer. The mechanics are on the gelato versus ice cream page.
