Olive oil ice cream

What olive oil tastes like

Olive oil ice cream is pale gold-green and rich. It tastes fruity, and it ends with a slightly peppery olive oil finish that lingers after each spoonful. The texture is smooth and full, because the oil adds fat to a dairy base. The main flavoring is extra virgin olive oil, so the oil you choose shapes the flavor. A fruitier oil gives a fruitier scoop, and a more peppery oil gives a stronger bite at the end. A sprinkle of flaky salt on top is the usual finish. It adds a little crunch and a salty edge against the sweet cream.

Where olive oil comes from

How to make olive oil at home

Olive oil ice cream uses a Philadelphia base, which has no eggs. The Base Builder sets up that style for you and sizes the base to your machine, in grams and cups. It gives a base formula built on standard food-science ranges, not a tested recipe.

To add the flavor, whisk extra virgin olive oil into the warm base in a thin stream so it emulsifies. Then churn it in your machine. Save the flaky salt for serving and sprinkle a little on each scoop. If you add other pieces, fold them in at the end of churning. In factories, pieces go in as the ice cream leaves the freezer, when it is about as soft as soft serve. That is why home cooks add them last.

If you already have an olive oil ice cream recipe you like, the Recipe Scaler resizes it to your machine and converts cups to grams.

What to serve with olive oil

Olive oil ice cream suits simple partners that let the oil show. A pinch of flaky salt on top is an easy topping. Lemon brightens the fruity side, so try a little lemon zest over the scoop. Figs, fresh or sliced, sit well next to its rich, mellow sweetness. Dark chocolate works too. Shave some over the top or serve a square on the side, and let its bitterness play against the peppery finish.

• flaky salt
• lemon
• figs
• dark chocolate

How common olive oil is

Olive oil ice cream gets our new moon badge, 1 of 5, with the legend label Rare: rare enough that you would most likely make it at home. The badge tells you how easy the flavor is to find, not how much people like it. No survey we use lists olive oil ice cream by name, so this badge is our editorial judgement alone. If you want to try it, plan to make it yourself rather than count on finding it.

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

Nutrition, roughly

FoodData Central has no record for olive oil, so the figures shown are for a plain vanilla base, not for this flavor. Regular vanilla has 207 kcal, 11 g fat and 21.2 g sugars per 100 grams. Rich vanilla has 249 kcal, 16.2 g fat and 20.6 g sugars per 100 grams. A 1/2 cup (66 g) of regular vanilla has about 137 kcal. The olive oil, salt and your sweetener change these numbers.