I love Japanese ice cream flavours, because they incorporate vegetables into them sometimes. I've tried pumpkin and spinach gelatos on a trip to Hokkaido. Chestnut ice cream is not too uncommon either. And this post features murasaki-imo or purple sweet potato ice cream, acquired from a Japanese fair at Isetan @ Westgate, Singapore. It's the only purple one - both the cover and colour of the ice cream itself.
The other flavours were, clockwise from the purple one, yuzu, ponkan (a type of orange-like Japanese fruit... it is slightly tear-dropped shape compared to round oranges, I believe) and matcha. Matcha was pretty standard, and ponkan kinda just tasted like orange, so I'll just briefly comment on the purple sweet potato and yuzu flavours.
It tasted somewhat like the sweet potato latte that I featured previously, only frozen and sweeter. It also had a milder sweet potato taste... which kinda disappointed me. But I wonder if that was due to the cold temperature, which may desensitise my tastebuds, perhaps?
Nonetheless, I thought it was a good idea because sweet potato has a soothing, mild and yet earthy taste, and I thought the coldness and cream made it a very relaxing and healthy-feeling snack, even though there's technically quite a bit of sugar in there. (Still, perhaps if you get a good variety of purple sweet potato that's really sweet, you may need to use less sugar?)
The yuzu ice cream was probably the best of the lot... it had a strong sour citrus flavour, although the bitter peel taste was somewhat missing. Still, the citrus flavour was stronger and had a fuller flavour than the ponkan ice cream. It complemented the creamy milk taste very well indeed! Perhaps the manufacturers played down the bitter peel taste because that wouldn't have gone too well with the cream?
Finally, a comment on the ingredients... they were all natural, with no artificial colouring, hence the mild, soothing pastel colours of the range. I really appreciated that aspect of the ice cream. They had somewhat more ingredients than Haagen Daaz (like fresh milk and lactosucrose), but I think this level of naturalness is rather hard to come by. So overall this was a great alternative to Haagen Daaz as high quality ice cream, and an awesome find!
Nonetheless, I thought it was a good idea because sweet potato has a soothing, mild and yet earthy taste, and I thought the coldness and cream made it a very relaxing and healthy-feeling snack, even though there's technically quite a bit of sugar in there. (Still, perhaps if you get a good variety of purple sweet potato that's really sweet, you may need to use less sugar?)
The yuzu ice cream was probably the best of the lot... it had a strong sour citrus flavour, although the bitter peel taste was somewhat missing. Still, the citrus flavour was stronger and had a fuller flavour than the ponkan ice cream. It complemented the creamy milk taste very well indeed! Perhaps the manufacturers played down the bitter peel taste because that wouldn't have gone too well with the cream?
Finally, a comment on the ingredients... they were all natural, with no artificial colouring, hence the mild, soothing pastel colours of the range. I really appreciated that aspect of the ice cream. They had somewhat more ingredients than Haagen Daaz (like fresh milk and lactosucrose), but I think this level of naturalness is rather hard to come by. So overall this was a great alternative to Haagen Daaz as high quality ice cream, and an awesome find!
Found these ice creams interesting? Check out more unusual ice creams here!
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