Vanilla ice
cream topped with olive oil and sea salt? The internet was recently abuzz with this rather odd-sounding combo endorsed by none other than
Dua Lipa
, the pop singer who made it to the Time 100 list of the world’s most influential people this year. “It’s so good, you have to try it!” Lipa said in a BBC Radio1 interview.
Back in Bengaluru, Anurag Arora, a chef who curates fine dining experiences, is already on top of this unexpected food trend.
At a food pop-up recently, the chef-curator churned out a vanilla softy made of pure buffalo milk, topped with extra virgin olive oil and a sprinkling of salt. “It’s a lovely, light and fluffy combination which just needs discovering. Commercial soft serves are made from a powdered concentrate, but the flavours of this one remind one of whipped cream and a glass of milk,” says Arora, who was inspired by Italy’s milk-based gelato ‘stracciatella’, often served with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
While Gen Z-ers associate softies with American fast food chain McDonald’s, most millennials will remember the velvety summer treat pouring out of machines at melas, amusem*nt parks and market nooks which sold cones for just Rs 5. Bengaluru’s iconic Mavalli Tiffin Room (MTR) was a pioneer in importing softy machines and setting up franchised kiosks that became a hit. But now, the
soft serve
, which is basically semi-solid ice cream with a lot of air, is slowly swirling its way up the
gourmet
high table in new and more inventive avatars. Arora, for instance, is trying out a malt caramel softy and plans to play with the tanginess of Japanese miso paste.
Nostalgia plays a huge part in keeping softy love alive, says Chaitanya Muppala, founder of Hyderabad-based craft chocolate company Manam Chocolate. “We didn’t grow up with gelatos or sorbets. But as a nineties kid, the soft serve was this magical treat which swirled into a cone from a rattling machine. We really wanted to bring it back in a new avatar, especially since it had almost disappeared from the scene.” The company started serving the softy from the day it launched operations in August.
Their prized serve is the creamy Chakkarakeli banana, an Andhra variety that is brought in from farms. To cut the sweetness, it is paired with 60% dark chocolate and topped with freeze-dried raspberries. “It’s so popular that we play Russian roulette with it. Our customers don’t know if it will be there every day, so they are forced to keep coming in to check,” says Muppala. Other seasonal delights on the menu are a creamy mango soft serve with fresh Himayat and Pedda Rasalu mangoes served in wholewheat waffle cones and millet cups. Toppings include almond batons, Kashmiri walnuts, mango-ginger pâte de fruits, caramelized pecans and cacao nibs. “Our taps have single origin milk and dark chocolate for the softy to be dunked into,” adds Muppala. They are launching an avocado soft serve soon.
The Bombay Sweet Shop applies its ‘modern mithais’ ethos to the soft serves that have been its mainstay right from the first outlet in Byculla, Mumbai. Think rasmalai soft serve made with mini rasmalais; black sesame soft serve inspired by winter gajak; and even a rabri soft serve with jalebi.
“I remembered seeing kulfi hand-churned in Lucknow and Kanpur. As the soft-serve machine mimics traditional hand churning, we started having fun with our soft serve flavours,” says chef and ‘chief mithaiwala’ Girish Nayak. Their nolen gur soft serve has palm jaggery and mishti doi served with tiny balls of nolen gur rasgulla. There’s also a rose and watermelon one inspired by
Mohabbat Ka Sharbat
from the thelas of Old Delhi, and a Pallonji soda-inspired raspberry one. For Holi and Ganesh Chaturthi, they have the thandai soft serve (with rabri and pistachios, topped with gulkand) and the puran poli soft serve (with puran poli crisps and a spiced jaggery sauce).
We didn’t grow up with gelatos or sorbets. But as a nineties kid, the soft serve was this magical treat which swirled into a cone from a rattling machine. We really wanted to bring it back in a new avatar, especially since it had almost disappeared from the scene
Chaitanya Muppala, founder, Manam Chocolate
The 2,000-sq-ft Soft Serve Co. in Alwarpet, Chennai even serves softy inside bambolini and brioche-style donuts, croissants and fries topped with truffle oil. The ice cream shop started by restaurateur Anuj Rajasekeran two years ago is already getting offers for branches in other cities. “For me, ice cream in Chennai only meant softy throughout childhood. This was long before McDonald’s,” he says. Rajasekeran has made soft serves out of sorbets and frozen yoghurt, matcha tea with boba pearls, mascarpone and peanut butter. “But the bestseller is the cereal milk soft serve. Remember the soggy leftovers after you finish a bowl of cereal with milk? That’s what it tastes like.”
What about dairy-free options? Sarah Nicole Edwards, a certified health coach and plant-based recipe developer, has been curating monthly garden pop-ups of oat milk soft serves at her Bengaluru café Cloves + Copper for a while now. She rents a large softy machine and keeps a make-your-own-sundae format. “A company called Oat Mlk gives us powdered oat milk mixed with all-natural sugar and vanilla. Our toppings range from chocolate and jaggery caramel sauce to coconut sugar, strawberry and mango compotes, and homemade granola. It’s crazy popular, with long queues,” she says.
