Sunday, July 31, 2011

Want Vegemite with your ice-cream?

Vegemite's back on the ice-cream menu.

The iconic Australian spread is to make a come back as part of the flavours offered by a newcomer Tasti D-Lite when opens its first Australian dessert outlet in a few weeks.

The popular US franchise is starting in Melbourne but looking to expand to Queensland with plans to open about 40 outlets in the next five years.

Director of development Jeremy Crawford says all the traditional flavours, including the basic vanilla and chocolate, will be available and made fresh at the store.

"All we need to do to get any one of the 100 other flavours is use a little bit of the vanilla or chocolate base mix and add a blend of syrups together and we can make any flavour,'' he says.

That's where the Vegemite plan comes in.

"Although it's a US brand we're an Australian family here and we're bringing it to Australia so we want to give Tasti D-Lite it's own Australian identity,'' he says.

The idea has been tried before by New South Wales company Gelatissimo which served up both Vegemite and Lamington flavoured ice-creams for Australia Day this year.

"I don't want to eat that ever again. Not Vegemite and ice-cream together! Ever!'' said an unimpressed young Rhiannon Cooke-Jones after a taste (see pictures)

The Vegemite flavour has also been tried in a gelato at Brisbane's Gelateria Cremona and an ice-cream at Apollo Bay's Ice-Cream Tubs in Victoria.

Crazy flavoured ice-cream seems all the rage at the moment with a recent MasterChef episode featuring Dani and Hayden making bagel-flavoured ice -cream from Wylie Dufresne's New York restaurant WD-50.

And who could forget culinary genius Heston Bloomenthal's bacon and egg ice-cream that's been served up at his famous Fat Duck restaurant in the UK.

The Lonely Planet travel guide website earlier this year listed some even stranger ice-cream flavours from Japan, including chicken wing, whale, beef tongue, squid, horse sashimi, pit viper snake, Indian curry, shark fin ramen, octopus and caviar.

Tasti D-Lite's not planning anything quite so controversial but listed flavours already include burnt sugar, cake batter, green tea, egg nog, a pumpkin cheesecake and the US favourite Nutella.

Mr Crawford says they have yet to prepare a batch of Vegemite flavour although he has tasted it before.

"I've tried it once or twice in a few different forms,'' he says/ "Once we have our store we're going to see how good we can get a cup of Vegemite tasting.''

Other Australian-themed flavours are also being considered including one using Milo and he's also open to suggestions from the public.


Article posted by Spencer Samaroo, Managing Director, Moo-Lolly-Bar
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Source and Photo: Courier Mail


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