Spring is in the air… or at least in our ever hopeful hearts, so we kicked off the month of March with our new spring ice cream flavour: Salted Honey Crackle. Only here for three months (until May 31st), this new flavour was developed by our Chef Amy as a riff on one of her favourite childhood foods, honey and buttered toast.
Let’s dive a little deeper into this new flavour!
First things first, why the name “Salted Honey Crackle“? Aside from being a good descriptor of the inclusions in this ice cream, we wanted to highlight its flavour difference from one of our mainstay ice cream flavours (and customer favourite) – the Honey Vanilla. While both flavours have honey in their names, they couldn’t be more different.
Not only is there honey infused in the base of this new ice cream, there are also ribbons of lightly salted caramelized honey streaked throughout to double the honey punch. A small amount of salt was added as a way to further highlight the caramelized honey flavour (click here to learn how that works) and to modulate the sweetness in the ice cream as a whole. Don’t worry though, this ice cream does not taste salty in the least.
Another key difference here is that there is absolutely no vanilla used in the base (hence the absence of the tell-tale specks of vanilla beans!). This is because vanilla did not figure in the original inspiration of honey and buttered toast 😉
Finally, to incorporate that oh-so-familiar crunch of toast into the ice cream in a way that worked flavour wise, we decided to use nuggets of sponge toffee. Also known as honeycomb toffee or fairy candy, this sweet treat is said to have originated somewhere in upstate New York in the 1940s. While specific origin details are vague, we do know one thing: it adds the perfect crackle to ice cream!
It’s delicious on its own, and we have also incorporated it into a few of our spring seasonal desserts such as the Jersey S’more. Give it a shot and let us know what you think!
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