9 Ways People Enjoy Ice Cream Around the World
Italy: Gelato
So what is the difference between ice cream and Italian gelato? Gelato is made with mostly milk, rather than cream, and is lower in fat. Ice cream is churned quickly to let air in and make it fluffy, while gelato is slow-churned, which makes it denser. Get more details on the differences between ice cream and gelato here.
PHOTO: Offset
India: Kulfi
This dessert is made with condensed milk that’s slow cooked with continuous stirring, developing a nutty taste as the lactose and sugars in the milk caramelize while cooking. It’s flavored with flavors like rose, pistachio, or cardamom and frozen in molds, resulting in a very dense and creamy popsicle.
PHOTO: Alamy
Japan: Mochi Ice Cream
This ice cream comes in its own delicious, edible wrapper made from a pounded sticky rice cake. The balls, usually eaten in a bite or two, are often filled with ice cream flavored with green tea, red bean, strawberry, chocolate, or vanilla.
PHOTO: Alamy
Turkey: Dondurma
This frozen dessert has so much body that it’s sometimes eaten with a knife and fork. In addition to milk and sugar, dondurma is made with salep, a flour made from orchids, and mastic, a resin that adds chewiness. It’s often churned with a long-handled paddle by street vendors to keep it pliable enough to serve.
PHOTO: Alamy
Germany: Spaghettieis
This dish may look like spaghetti, but it is pure dessert, a popular novelty dessert in Germany during the summer holidays. Vanilla ice cream is pushed through a spaetzle press to look like noodles, and then plated on top of whipped cream and topped with a strawberry sauce that looks like marinara. It’s then topped with grated almonds or white chocolate that appears like parmesan cheese.
PHOTO: Alamy
Iran: Faloodeh
This is one of the oldest cold deserts, with records of it being served dating back to 400 B.C. It’s made with a frozen, slushy-like syrup of rose water, sugar and vermicelli noodles, which add a chewy texture. The faloodeh is sometimes served along saffron ice cream and crushed pistachios, but can also be garnished with lime or sour cherry juice.
PHOTO: Courtesy of The Kitchn
Mexico: Paleta
The ice pops sold from carts and in kiosks can have a cream base, and come in flavors like coconut or rum, or a water base, and often include chunks of fresh fruit like mango, guava or tamarind. They can even get spicy with flavors like spicy cucumber and lime.
PHOTO: Corbis
Malaysia: Ais kacang
This shaved-ice dessert is served with brightly colored fruits and syrups, and toppings including red beans, sweet corn, and cubes of jelly made from pandan leaves and rose water. Palm seeds and crispy salted roasted peanuts are also toppings that give the dessert a variety of textures, and condensed milk adds creaminess.
PHOTO: Alamy
United States: Frozen Custard
What sets frozen custard apart from ice cream is egg yolks – the FDA has even defined custard as having 10% milk fat and at least 1.4% egg yolk solids — anything less is ice cream. The resulting dessert is very dense and creamy – air is not whipped into it the way it is in ice cream. The dessert was originally invented in Coney Island, but is most popular in the Midwestern United States.
PHOTO: Alamy
This week, Yahoo Food is celebrating America’s favorite dessert with a series of profiles, recipes and photo galleries all dedicated to the creamy, delicious dessert. Check out our Ice Cream page for complete coverage!
You scream, I scream, almost the entire globe screams for ice cream in its many forms.
Whether it’s portable mochi ice cream from Japan or creamy kulfi from India, touring the world of ice cream can be pretty sweet.
There are multi-continental roots to the history of ice cream. Frozen mixtures of milk and rice were made in China starting as early as 200 B.C. and frozen mixtures of a slushy syrup and chewy noodles appeared even earlier in the Persian empire in 400 B.C.
The first recipes for ice cream started appearing in the 1700s in England, and Quaker immigrants first brought the frozen treat to the United States. Over the years, through innovations like soft serve, frozen custard, and thick pints chocked full of toppings, it has become America’s favorite dessert.
But that doesn’t mean the United States has the monopoly on delicious frozen desserts. Go global with these sweet treats from around the world.
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