Creamy, Milky and Nutty Brain Freeze Ice Creams & Desserts from Around the World and Its Regional Specialities

As the current fare stands, there are two kinds of ice cream, one that melts quite easily and is rich in cream and milk and the other that uses both of these ingredients and also some special ingredients that turn it into a chewy and stretchy dessert. Take a trip around the world from the gelato capital to the Middle East where the other kind of ice cream thrives. Here are some of the unique ice cream varieties that you should try at least once in your lifetime and if you feel enthusiastic enough try making them at home, for they have the most delicious dessert recipes.

1. Tartufo

A sculpted gelato dessert that is slathered in a generous dusting of cocoa powder, Tartufo is prepared with more than one gelato flavours sculpted to resemble a small dome. This one differs from the original Tartufo di Pizzo, although this one also hails from Pizzo. It's domal in shape whereas the Tartufo di Pizzo is a sphere with a minimum of two balls per serving. Tartufo uses hazelnut ice cream with a filling of dark chocolate and the exterior has the generous cocoa powder showered on it. These days other ice cream flavours are also used with different fillings ranging from broken cookies, cherries, fruits with or without a shell and decorated with nuts, dessicated coconut or crumbled cookies.

2. Kaimaki

Similar to Turkish ice cream, Kaimaki is also stretchy, like it and is definitely something that is a relic from the Ottoman rule in the country’s past. Kaimaki also uses salep, orchid root powder, which is called Sahlab locally and also uses Mastiha, a kind of resin from cedar or pine trees, that is protected and used in the ice cream to add flavour to it. It is the Turkish Domdurma to an extent and looks similar but the local taste of the ice cream in Turkey and Greece will be different because of the ingredients and the hands which make it.

3. Gelato al pistachio

Nuts were introduced by the Arabs in Italy during their rule as was the technology of freezing juices which in time produced gelato and sorbets. Pistachio ice cream was also made, eventually producing a pastel green ice cream that like every gelato is creamy, dense and melts in the sun. Pistachio paste is added to the base materials of the gelato – milk, cream, eggs and sugar and these are mixed and then churned to produce Gelato al pistacchio.

4. Nutmeg Ice cream

Coming from Grenada, which produces ⅓ of the world's nutmeg for over 100 years, it's hardly a surprise that nutmeg ice cream is a classic here. This ice cream is made from nutmeg, milk, heavy cream, sugar, and egg yolks. The local ice cream uses fresh nutmeg that is grated into a fine powder to get the best out of the flavour of the spice. It's scooped into dessert cups once prepared after an hour of cooking and preparing in a traditional ice cream making device with cinnamon sticks pushed into it.

5. Brownie Sundae

Known as the sizzling brownie with vanilla ice cream in our country, the Brownie Sundae comes from the United States. Dense and fudgy brownies are cut into cubes put on a serving plate or bowl and topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. There's no sizzling chocolate sauce in the US version, but it does use a hot chocolate fudge sauce, caramel or strawberry sauce as a topping. Whipped cream, nuts, diced fruit, chocolate chips, and candy sprinkles might also be added; vanilla ice cream is a common choice but depending on the person or place, it might come in other flavours.

6. Bacio gelato

Another gelato variety from Italy, it combines hazelnut and chocolate and traces its origin to 1920, when Luisa Spagnoli who owned a confectionery in Perugina, to cut down costs, she mixed some leftover chopped hazelnuts with chocolate and thus was born Bacio Perugina. Spagnaoli named it “cazzatto”, meaning “punch”, because of its weird shape that looked like it had been beaten up, but after the ice cream soared in popularity it changed to Bacio, which means kiss because the confection was wrapped in silver foil with a love note attached. This was what in time inspired the Bacio gelato which has a Gianduja (a mix of chocolate and hazelnut paste), mixed with chopped hazelnuts and coated in dark chocolate.

7. Ice cream float

From the United States’ Philadelphia comes the ice cream float that is a popular fixture and many fast food joints. It's simply a scoop of ice cream floating in a glass of fizzy soda or root beer. A soda shop owner invented this beverage, in the 1800s, when he ran out of cream for his cream soda drinks. As luck would have it his earnings soared and now you can see these at most American bars and diners and in other places across the world too.

8. Gianduia gelato

Quite similar to the Bacio that Luisa Spagnoli created, this gelato is from Italy’s Piedmont region, famed for its hazelnuts, that uses milk chocolate and hazelnuts, not chopped like the Bacio gelato. This ice cream mimics the iconic cocoa, hazelnut paste and sugar log called gianduia.