Last month we spoke about one of the latest emerging trends in the world of ice cream, crumbles. But that isn’t the only trend currently sweeping the industry; this month we will explore the rise of mixing fruits within ice cream to create innovative new flavours.
Where is this trend emerging?
Last month as we scampered round Rimini, Italy for the annual SIGEP expo, we noticed many suppliers (Antonelli’s included) creating and introducing brand new products, developed by mixing fruits and fruit flavours into different cocktails.
Of course, this caught our eye as it’s such a simple method of product development, but one that can really bring delicious results in a cost-effective way as, for the most part, you can utilise many ingredients already sitting on your shelf.
More and more so, people are looking to create new and exciting flavours. When you go to a juice bar, very rarely would you ask for a juice with one type of fruit; instead you would mix your fruits together to create something entirely different, that’s what we’re looking for in this ice cream trend.
Now there are a few different ways to approach a mixed fruit concept within your ice cream recipes, each with their own benefits to your business. Below we’ll take a look at these methods and how to best develop them…
#1 Ready Bag products
We’ve spoken at length about the advantages of ready bag products and for fruity based ice creams they can be extraordinarily beneficial.
Ready bag mixes offer a quick and simple way to produce your ice cream base, within which you can then add a fair helping of freeze-dried fruit to create your flavour. At this stage you can really begin to experiment with your flavours to create something that you customers may not have tried before.
For example, this year we’ve seen the likes of peach, mango and passionfruit gelato, as well as guava, mango and coconut or even strawberry, lime and elderberry.
We can even go that next step and add in a herb or spice to our mixes. We recently tried a delicious mango, pineapple, passionfruit and turmeric ice cream. Or if you’re really feeling creative, how about a watermelon, mango, lime and basil flavour?
In choosing solutions like this, we are establishing a quick and simple way to add that wow factor into your cabinet at very little cost, time and experimentation.
#2 Mix yourself
If you want to really experiment with your flavours, then mixing yourself is a great option.
Using a sugar paste, you can then decide to use a mixture of fruit pastes or even the real deal fruits to curate some exciting new concepts.
Often, when people are putting fruits together in a recipe, they’ll put a single paste in the mixture and ripple a fruit flavour, for example a mango paste with passionfruit ripple. But why not include multiple pastes by halving the dosage between the two to create a vibrant cocktail of flavours throughout the mix? A particular favourite is to mix pineapple and mango pastes together, but you could also mix coconut and pineapple to create that iconic pina colada flavour (virgin of course).
#3 Fruit juices
Mixing a paste with a fruit juice is yet another great way to bring out those delicious fruity flavours we want in our new products.
For example, you could use a blackcurrant paste with the addition of apple juice, a banana paste with coconut milk or even a cherry paste with orange juice. The options are endless!
One thing to consider, however, when using any of the above methods is that you should take into account the strength of flavour of each fruit. Getting the balance right within your recipe is crucial, so you should add the amount of your flavours carefully (stronger flavours you’ll need less of, whilst weaker flavours will require more).
If you think about mango, this is quite an overpowering flavour, so if we were to create a mango, peach and passionfruit ice cream, as a percentage we would likely have 40% peach, 40% passionfruit and 20% mango as our total dosage.
And there you have it! Our recommendations for incorporating this very fruity new trend into your cabinet. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact the Antonelli team.