Pineapple Cake Ice Cream by Lotte (Asia ni Koishite or Fall in Love with Asia Series)

I noticed that Lotte has some pretty interesting ice cream flavours, so I've put them on my wish list. The first one I tried is Pineapple Cake Ice Cream, under the "Fall in Love with Asia" (or Ajia ni Koishite アジアに恋して) series. I believe Taiwan was the original country that started putting the pineapple cake on people's radar, so I imagined the taste in reference to that.

Pineapple Cake Ice Cream by Lotte (Asia ni Koishite or Fall in Love with Asia Series)

First off, the ice cream was not an ordinary vanilla ice cream, but tasted like a cake batter or cookie batter ice cream, except that it was in the cream itself and not as separate chunks of batter. There was that typical slightly raw wheat-like taste of batter, but instead of butter, it tasted like a margarine-based batter with notes of the corn oil commonly found in margarine.

There was also pineapple puree at the bottom of the ice cream, which was like the pineapple filling of pineapple cake, except that it was more moist than the typical pineapple filling. 

Pineapple Cake Ice Cream by Lotte - pineapple paste

Also, unlike the Taiwan pineapple filling which leans fragrant and mellow due to the addition of winter melon, this pineapple filling was like a pure pineapple puree, so it was more tart and fruity, and less fragrant. Exactly like the canned pineapples but very slightly more sour, and mashed.

Finally, here is the ingredients list (click photo to enlarge). First, the good thing is that pineapple sauce is the first ingredient, so they use more of it compared to cream. Besides that, it has a few interesting ingredients. Mizuame was an eyebrow raiser. Usually, pineapple cake in Taiwan is usually made in a Western style with butter and not in the traditional Japanese style, which is where mizuame tends to be used. Mizuame also often has a malty taste when heated... I didn't notice it here, possibly because it was cold. There is also a tiny bit of salt as the last ingredient.

Pineapple Cake Ice Cream by Lotte - ingredients list

The other interesting ingredient was cookie paste. It in turn comprises a few ingredients, such as fruit sugar, more mizuame and cookies.

Finally, although dairy product (unspecified) was the 2nd ingredient, hence the main ingredient in the ice cream, there was also vegetable oil as the 2nd last ingredient. I'm not sure where the margarine taste comes from, but it could have been that.

Overall though, I thought it was a wonderful concept and the tart and fruity pineapple paste went well with the cookie batter ice cream. Certainly a combination not seen in the West before.

Discover other interesting pineapple, Chinese pastries and ice cream treats

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