Top 8: These luxury ice creams are the cream of the crop
Scúp Irish Gelato Hazelnut. Pictures: Chani Anderson
Unsurprisingly, during the recent hot spells in Ireland, ice cream sales surged, often jumping by 92%. According to magazine, Cork holds the title as Ireland’s ice cream capital, registering the highest sales in the country, followed by Dublin, then Kerry.
This month we looked for luxurious ice creams, hoping for some new brands that might catch our eye.
We wanted ice cream that was creamy, but not sickly, with some sweetness, but not too much to result in only sweetness as the flavour (there were many we rejected for the latter reason).
We also looked for something that was interesting, had some added textures or flavours. Something that would make us want to eat more of it.
All of our Top 8 managed that.
A lovely fresh hazelnut flavour dominates the not-too-sweet chocolate. It's perfectly balanced. It keeps quite soft and is easy to scoop straight from the freezer. Top marks! It's made in Wexford and is available in selected SuperValus, speciality foodshops, Menloe Stores, Blackrock, Cork, and Avoca stores nationwide. We bought in Bradley's, North Main Street, Cork.
This is a real winner. The ice cream is creamy, the raspberry is floral and fruity with a genuine flavour. The lovely, creamy base has the right amount of richness. It was loved by all tasters. At €6, it's a fair price for this quality. We bought in M&S and saw it for the same price in Tesco.
An exciting product from an Irish company called Emerald based in Ballingarry, Co Limerick. It has aswirl of dark muscovado sugar and some burnt sugar and burnt butter, along with a toffee sauce. The result is a sweet, deep toffee denseness in a vanilla base. Overall, there’s an interesting salty, umami flavour, crossed with sweetness. Delicious! Not cheap, but appreciated by all. It's already selling in the USA, hence the harp logo. We bought in Tesco.
This is a deliciously full-flavoured dairy-free ice cream which does not suffer any low creaminess from lack of dairy. Milk and cream are replaced by ground cashew nuts and a good amount of puréed mango in a commendably short list of ingredients. A very good product to serve to everyone when one guest needs dairy-free products. Not cheap, but the quality is there. In selected supermarkets and health stores. We bought in Quay Co Op, Cork.
New to us, this has crunchy almonds, a salted caramel sauce, and caramelised sugar pieces to make it quite sweet. But it also has a deep, creamy flavour made from rehydrated skimmed milk and egg yolk to offset the various forms of sugar. Tasters loved it. Made in Italy. Our Icelandic family buys it all the time in Reykjavik, where ice cream eating is a pastime. We bought in Bradley's, North Main Street, Cork.
With its smooth, rich vanilla flavour, it is soft enough to serve straight from the freezer and has a luxurious taste. This is a good base for slices of seasonal fresh peaches or cherries. Try drizzling with strawberries blended with a few fresh basil leaves. A very good price. Liked by all tasters.
Speculoos biscuits are spiced with cinnamon and twinned with a caramel taste. Broken up in decent chunks, the biscuits have a satisfying bite, and they're layered with ice cream and laced with caramel sauce. In a glass shape, this could be (romantically) shared, spoonful by spoonful. Produced in Italy.
Cookies made by Murphy’s in small chunks seemed not quite as interesting as when they are used instead of wafers for their delicious ice cream sandwiches. The ice cream itself is rich, creamy and delicious. We bought at Oliver Plunkett St Cork, see murphysicecream.ie for other stockists.
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