A gallery of popular ice cream types around the world

USA Today

2 days ago

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From a Vermont maple creemee to a sweet sundae that masquerades as a plate of spaghetti marinara, ice cream around the world is more than your average cone. Get a taste of summer with these ice cream styles worth melting for.
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The result of this international ice cream style looks like your typical swirly soft serve cone, but in New Zealand, the difference is in the blend. Ice cream parlors use a machine that combines premium vanilla ice cream with frozen fruit, resulting in a creamy treat locals call 'real fruit ice cream.' Traditionally, New Zealand-style ice cream starts with a vanilla base, but some shops offer chocolate ice cream, vanilla frozen yogurt, and vegan nondairy options for mixing with fruit.
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Move over, pad thai. I-tim-pad (also called stir-fried ice cream or rolled ice cream) is a Thai street food sensation that originated in the early 2000s. This international ice cream style begins by pouring a sweet milk base onto a freezing metal plate, adding a variety of mix-ins, such as fruit, candy, and cookie crumble. The mixture is then chopped, mashed, and spread until it's frozen. Finally, the sweet concoction is rolled into tight scrolls, which are placed vertically in a cup and topped with goodies.
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While traditional mochi dates back thousands of years in Japan, mochi ice cream was popularized in Los Angeles, California, in the 1980s by Frances Hashimoto and her husband, Joel Friedman. Together, they developed the novel frozen dessert, wrapping small balls of ice cream in thin mochi rice dough for a convenient handheld treat. In 1993, Hashimoto's family's company, the Mikawaya confectionery, began mass producing mochi ice cream.
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Malaysia gets mighty hot. To cool off, locals turn to a take on shaved ice known as ais kacang. A heaping stack of shaved ice gets topped with an often colorful and sometimes bewildering assortment of ingredients: things like grass jelly, sweet corn, palm nuts, diced fruit, aloe vera, condensed milk, and a whole host of sweet flavored syrups.
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Sorbet is truly an international ice cream style, with an origin story that varies, depending on the source, and touches several countries. But many cite Persia (now Iran), where it was tradition to pour grape juice over snow to create sharbat, an ancestor to sorbet. Some believe Marco Polo introduced sorbet to Europe upon returning from his global explorations. Wealthy Italians initially used sorbet as a palate cleanser between courses, but the delicious ice cream style soon gained popularity among all classes as sorbet vendors began popping up in plazas.
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Predating modern ice cream by centuries, kulfi originated in the Mughal Empire in the 16th century and was a royal delicacy favored in imperial courts. Originally infused with saffron, cardamom, pistachios, or rosewater, the dessert was made by simmering sweetened milk until thick and creamy, then freezing it in metal molds. The result is a denser, creamier, more custard-like ice cream than Western varieties.
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Chewy, stretchy, and elastic aren't words usually associated with ice cream, but they apply to dondurma. This traditionally hand-churned Turkish ice cream is made with milk, sugar, and salep powder. It's sometimes served on a plate, in a cone, or twisted on a stick like a kebab!
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Spaghettieis (or spaghetti ice cream) was invented in 1969 by Dario Fontanella, a son of Italian immigrants who owned an ice cream shop in Mannheim, Germany. He was inspired by a dessert called Mont Blanc, in which chestnut puree is piped through a pastry bag. Fontanella had ordered this dessert at a restaurant that used a spätzle press instead of a pastry bag, which gave the puree a noodle-like appearance. Fontanella tried the same method with ice cream, shaping the ice cream into spaghetti-like strands, and then smothering it with strawberry sauce as the "tomato sauce" and white chocolate shavings as the 'parmigiano cheese.' Today, this international ice cream style is available at almost every ice cream parlor in Germany.
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Gelato's earliest history can be traced loosely to ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, when sweet-tooths enjoyed icy fruit and honey mixtures. Bernardo Buontalenti, a Florentine architect and artist who lived during the Italian Renaissance in the 16th century, often is cited as the inventor of gelato, having come up with a frozen cream made with ice, salt, lemon, sugar, egg, honey, milk, and a splash of wine. Today, fans enjoy a wide range of gelato flavors, ranging from classic stracciatella to salted caramel.
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Cornwall, England, is famous for its clotted cream, made by heating full-fat cow's milk in a steam or water bath and allowing it to cool slowly until cream clots rise to the surface. This high fat cream, when made into ice cream, is about as creamy and deliciously rich as it gets.
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New England soft-serve stands popped up across the region in the 1950s and '60s, but the iconic spiral sweet treat was invented in the 1930s. (Both Tom Carvel of New York and Dairy Queen's founders from the Midwest take credit for its creation).
Today, whether in twist cones, sundaes, or dipped in chocolate and other flavors, the nostalgic favorite is part of the region's sweet seasonal ritual. In Vermont, it's called a creemee, which while similar in texture to soft serve, is defined by its higher butterfat content. The name is thought to reflect the creaminess of the ice cream and the state's emphasis on high-quality local dairy. (Go hyper-local with this international ice cream style and order a maple creemee!)
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In the early 1900s, brothers Archie and Elton Kohr came up with the frozen custard recipe, adding egg yolks to the ice cream mix, so it'd stay cold longer. They were the first to sell frozen custard commercially — on Coney Island, New York, in 1919 — where they sold more than 18,000 cones in one weekend! But it was at the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago, Illinois, where frozen custard became forever intertwined with the Midwest. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, then became known as the unofficial frozen custard capital of the world.
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Akutaq, also known as Alaskan ice cream, was traditionally made with animal fat combined with sugar and wild berries. Today, this dessert popular in Alaska comes in many varieties, most made from whipped Crisco combined with blueberries, cranberries, salmonberries, crowberries, or cloudberries.
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Inspired by Japanese kakigōri, shave ice arrived in Hawaii in the late 1800s with immigrant plantation workers who used hand-cranked tools to shave ice for a cooling treat in the tropical heat. Today, it's a beloved Hawaiian dessert elevated with flavored syrups, sweetened condensed milk, adzuki beans, and other creative add-ins.
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