Bacon ice cream
Alternative names | Bacon and egg ice cream |
---|---|
Course | Dessert |
Serving temperature | Cold |
Bacon ice cream (or bacon-and-egg ice cream) is an
Origins
Ice cream is generally expected to be a sweet food, eaten as a dessert, even though there is evidence of savoury ice creams eaten in Victorian times.[1] Bacon ice cream originated as a joke, a flavour that no one would willingly eat, in the 1973 "Ice Cream Parlour Sketch" by The Two Ronnies, where a customer requests cheese and onion flavoured ice cream followed by smokey bacon.[2]
In 1992, bacon-and-egg ice cream was created as an
Heston Blumenthal
The English chef Heston Blumenthal creates unusual dishes using molecular gastronomy. His restaurant, the Fat Duck in Bray, Berkshire, has won three Michelin stars among other achievements. As early as 2001, Blumenthal created savoury ice cream flavours such as mustard grain and crab.[7][8] In an article explaining the concept of "flavour encapsulation", Blumenthal explained that flavour is much more intense in encapsulated bursts, rather than when dispersed in a solution; therefore, the more that eggs are cooked, the more that the proteins stick together. This creates pockets of egg flavour in the ice cream, which release as it melts in customers' mouths.[9]
[Blumenthal's] bacon and egg ice cream came about through his interest in "flavour encapsulation": the principle of which means a single coffee bean crushed in your teeth while drinking hot water will taste much more of coffee than the same crushed bean dissolved in the water. One day, using that principle, he over-cooked the egg custard for an ice cream, so that it practically became scrambled. He puréed that and made an ice cream from it, that had an immense eggy flavour... [which] was not particularly pleasant. Which was when he decided to see if he could incorporate the sweet tones of smoked bacon into an egg ice cream. Boy, did it work.
Traditional ice cream is frozen
Blumenthal's bacon-and-egg ice cream, now one of his
In the 2006
Recipes
As bacon ice cream was created in 1992 and came to prominence in the 2000s, there is no traditional recipe. Recipes generally involve adding bacon to a standard sweet ice cream recipe, often
Heston Blumenthal variation
Blumenthal's recipe uses ice cream without flavouring, but which tastes of an egg. In the recipe featured in
Blumenthal has since updated his recipe to include ten hours of soaking the bacon in a vacuum-packed bag before baking. He has also changed the presentation so that the unfrozen ice cream is injected into empty egg shells, then dramatically scrambled at the customer's table in liquid nitrogen, giving the impression of cooking.[17]
Reception
Bacon ice cream has received a mixed reception; as a combination of sweet and savoury flavours, it was designed to be controversial. In 2004, rival chef Nico Ladenis thought the Michelin system was doing a "great disservice to the industry" by hailing Blumenthal as a genius for egg-and-bacon ice cream, saying that originality alone should not merit a Michelin star. Blumenthal pointed out that Ladenis had never tried the aforementioned ice cream.[18]
Trevor White has suggested that Blumenthal had latched onto a culture where diners cannot get enough of the new and are spoiled by choice, comparing the food to a "freak show".[19] Janet Street-Porter has criticised Blumenthal's cooking as pretentious. She attempted to make his bacon-and-egg ice cream from the recipe published in his The Big Fat Duck Cookbook, altering the recipe slightly due to her hectic workload and guessing when she did not have the right tools. The result she described as nauseating and "too sickly for words".[20]
The ice cream sparked debate in the Los Angeles Times when food writer Noelle Carter described bacon ice cream as perfection but the health section put up a photograph of a heart bypass and the headline "Bacon ice cream. No good can come of it".[21] The Delaware "Udder Delight" ice cream maker, Chip Hearn, who made bacon ice cream appears to have done so partly as a gimmick to get people into his shop since he allows customers to taste any flavour in the store. He felt that his flavours differentiated him from the many other parlours on the shore and many people come in to try bacon ice cream only to buy something else.[22]
Notable uses
Bacon ice cream has been recreated by other chefs in recent years. For example, it appears on the menu at Espai Sucre in Barcelona, a restaurant that specialises in desserts, with descriptions such as "innovative" and "spectacular".
See also
- List of bacon dishes
- List of ice cream flavors
- Bacon sundae
- Beer ice cream
- Chocolate-covered bacon
- Bacon mania
- 2010s in food
References
- ^ Hollweg, Lucas (3 July 2005). "He's Cooking". The Times. London. Retrieved 18 January 2011.
- ^ Barker, Ronnie; Corbett, Ronnie (26 December 1973). "Ice Cream Parlour Sketch". 3. BBC.
- ^ Victoria Advocate. 5 April 1992. Retrieved 17 January 2011.
- ^ "They'd only do this to ice cream on April Fool's Day". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 1 April 1992. Retrieved 17 January 2011.
- Toledo Blade. 1 April 1989. Retrieved 17 January 2011.
- ^ Oldenburg, Don (3 August 2003). "New Ice Cream Trend May Be Hard To Swallow". The Washington Post. Retrieved 18 January 2011.
- ^ a b c Derbyshire, David (17 May 2001). "Does ice cream cut the mustard?". The Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 21 April 2013. Retrieved 18 January 2011.
- ^ Moore, Victoria (12 January 2001). "Mustard ice cream, anyone?". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 18 January 2011.
- ^ Blumenthal, Heston (1 June 2002). "A Burst of Flavour". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 19 January 2011.
- ^ Rayner, Jay (15 February 2004). "The man who mistook his kitchen for a lab". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 4 May 2009. Retrieved 15 May 2009.
- ^ Tristem, Andy (2 February 2004). "Chefs in Michelin spat". Metro. Archived from the original on 12 September 2012. Retrieved 19 January 2011.
- ^ Bannerman, Lucy (30 April 2008). "Heston Blumenthal invents chocolate wine". The Times. London. Retrieved 18 January 2011.
- ISBN 1-59228-851-0. Retrieved 18 January 2011.
- Wired.com. Retrieved 18 January 2011.
- ^ Lebovitz, David (9 March 2008). "Candied Bacon Ice Cream Recipe". DavidLebovitz.com. Retrieved 18 January 2011.
- ^ "Egg-and-bacon ice cream". Kitchen Chemistry with Heston Blumenthal. 2005. Discovery Science.
- ^ Clay, Xanthe (28 October 2008). "Heston Blumenthal's Big Fat Duck cookbook is put to the test". The Telegraph. London. Retrieved 19 January 2011.
- ^ Day, Elizabeth (1 February 2004). "Chefs with stars in their eyes fail diners, says Michelin chief". The Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 11 November 2012. Retrieved 18 January 2011.
- ISBN 978-0-470-84085-6. Retrieved 14 May 2009.
- ^ Street-Porter, Janet (24 April 2004). "My idea of Hell's Kitchen". The Independent. London. Retrieved 18 January 2011.
- ^ Dennis, Tami (2 April 2009). "Bacon ice cream. No good can come of it". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 18 January 2011.
- ^ "Who's to blame for bacon ice cream". MSNBC. 9 May 2008. Archived from the original on 14 July 2011. Retrieved 18 January 2011.
- ISBN 978-0-470-28775-0.
- ^ Russo, Susan (1 December 2009). "Bacon gets its just desserts". NPR. Archived from the original on 25 January 2011. Retrieved 18 January 2011.
- ^ "Canadian chef uses maple bacon ice cream to win U.S. contest". CTV. 21 August 2009. Archived from the original on 27 July 2012. Retrieved 18 January 2011.
- ^ a b Rosenfeld, Everett (13 June 2012). "The Bacon Sundae is Coming". Time. Retrieved 18 July 2012.