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Dondurma-style (stretchy salep ice cream)

A chewy, stretchy Turkish-style ice cream thickened with salep, an orchid tuber flour, and often flavored with mastic resin.

Rare Rare enough that you would most likely make it at home. What the badge means

Dondurma-style ice cream is the stretchy, chewy ice cream also called Turkish ice cream or Maraş ice cream. It gets its pull from salep, a flour made from orchid tubers.

It is hard to find, so you would most likely make it at home. This page covers how it tastes, where it comes from, how to make dondurma-style ice cream, what to serve with it, how common it is and its nutrition.

What dondurma-style ice cream tastes like

Dondurma-style ice cream is chewy and stretchy, and it melts slowly. It is firm enough that you can cut it with a knife and fork. The texture comes from salep, a flour ground from orchid tubers, which thickens the milk as it heats. Traditional versions use goat's milk, and whole milk works for a home batch. Many cooks also flavor it with mastic, a tree resin. The classic mix has no fruit, nuts or chocolate in it, so the flavor stays close to sweetened milk with a hint of resin. Kneading and beating the mix as it firms adds to the stretch. Outside Turkey, real salep is hard to get, so cooks often use a substitute.

Where dondurma-style ice cream comes from

Turkey’s patent office registered Maraş dondurması as geographical indication No. 344 on April 18, 2018. According to that registration, the official version may use only goat’s milk, salep and sugar. Sugar runs 15 to 22%, salep 0.7 to 8%, milk fat at least 4%, total solids at least 33%, and air 15 to 30%. The specification lists no mastic.

Go Türkiye, the country’s tourism portal, describes Maraş ice cream as made with salep, a chewy resin and goat’s milk. Its method mixes finely ground mastic gum into the sugar before the salep goes in.

Atlas Obscura says vendors beat dondurma with long metal rods and knead it like dough, which adds to its stretch. It also reports that the orchids behind salep have never been grown commercially, that Turkey bans their export, and that vendors abroad often use guar gum or konjac flour instead.

How to make dondurma-style ice cream at home

Start with the method. Heat goat's or whole milk with sugar. If you use mastic, grind it and mix it into the sugar first. Then whisk in the salep and keep whisking until the mix turns thick. There are no mix-ins to add. The kneading and beating give dondurma-style ice cream its texture, so work it well as it firms up.

For a base, we point you to the no-churn style (condensed milk and whipped cream), and the Base Builder sets that style up for you. Know its limits: no Base Builder style matches dondurma, because its stretch comes from salep and none of our styles uses salep. No-churn is only the closest fit. The Base Builder gives a base formula built on standard food-science ranges, not a tested recipe.

If you already have a dondurma recipe you like, the Recipe Scaler resizes it to your machine and converts cups to grams.

Base formula

Open the Base Builder: No-churn (condensed milk and whipped cream)

No Base Builder style matches dondurma: its stretch comes from salep, which none of the site's styles uses. The no-churn style is only the closest.

The Base Builder gives a base formula built on standard food-science ranges, not a tested recipe.

What to serve with dondurma-style ice cream

Dondurma-style ice cream sits well next to baklava, where its cool chew plays against the flaky, syrupy pastry. Scatter chopped pistachios on top for crunch and a bit of green. Serve a small cup of Turkish coffee alongside, since the bitter coffee balances the sweet milk. Because it melts slowly, it holds its shape on a plate, so you can cut it into pieces and serve it with a knife and fork.

  • baklava
  • pistachios
  • Turkish coffee

How common dondurma-style ice cream is

Dondurma-style ice cream carries a new moon badge, 1 of 5, labeled Rare: rare enough that you would most likely make it at home. The badge says how easy a flavor is to find, not how much people like it. No survey we use lists this flavor by name, so the badge is our judgement alone. Atlas Obscura notes that the orchids used for salep have never been grown commercially and that Turkey bans their export, which is one reason true versions are scarce abroad. Vendors outside Turkey often swap in guar gum or konjac flour.

No survey we use lists this flavor by name, so its badge is our own judgement of how easy it is to find.

  1. Rare Rare enough that you would most likely make it at home.
  2. Hard to find Look for it in specialty shops and seasonal runs.
  3. Sometimes found Found in some shops and some grocery freezers.
  4. Easy to find Common in most grocery freezers.
  5. Classic A classic you can buy almost anywhere.

Nutrition, roughly

FoodData Central has no record for dondurma-style ice cream itself. The figures on this page are for a plain vanilla base. Regular vanilla has 207 kcal, 11 g fat and 21.2 g sugars per 100 grams, and rich vanilla has 249 kcal and 16.2 g fat. FDC's 1/2 cup (66 g) portion of regular vanilla is about 137 kcal. Salep, goat's milk, mastic and sweeteners change the numbers.

Nutrition per 100 grams

FoodData Central record Calories Fat Saturated fat Sugars Protein
Ice creams, vanilla FDC 167575 1/2 cup (66 g): about 137 kcal, 7.3 g fat 207 kcal 11 g 6.79 g 21.2 g 3.5 g
Ice creams, vanilla, rich FDC 167573 249 kcal 16.2 g 10.30 g 20.6 g 3.5 g

FoodData Central has no record for dondurma-style ice cream itself: these are the figures for a plain vanilla base, regular to rich. Mix-ins and sweeteners change them.

Questions people ask

What does dondurma-style ice cream taste and feel like?

It is chewy, stretchy and slow to melt, firm enough to cut with a knife and fork. Salep, a flour of orchid tubers, thickens it, and many versions add mastic resin for flavor. Goat's or whole milk forms the base.

What can I use instead of salep?

Atlas Obscura says vendors outside Turkey often use guar gum or konjac flour in place of salep. The orchids used for salep have never been grown commercially, and Turkey bans their export, so true salep is hard to get.

Which Base Builder style should I use for dondurma?

Use the no-churn style, made with condensed milk and whipped cream. It is only the closest fit, because none of our styles uses salep. The stretch comes from salep and from kneading and beating the mix, not from mix-ins.

Regional and international ice cream flavors · All flavors

Plan and make it with these

Sources

  1. Geographical indication No. 344, Maraş Dondurması (registered April 18, 2018; in Turkish) Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (Türkpatent)
  2. Traditional Maraş Ice Cream and Its History Go Türkiye, the tourism portal of the Republic of Türkiye
  3. Dondurma Atlas Obscura
  4. Ice creams, vanilla (FDC 167575) U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service
  5. Ice creams, vanilla, rich (FDC 167573) U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service

Every data source the site uses is on the Sources page.