Spumoni ice cream flavors puts a smile on my face. Traditionally the ice cream is maraschino cherry, pistachio, and chocolate celebrating fruits and nuts.
Oh, and the “c” word… chocolate.
It shares this favorite flavor in common with a Neapolitan ice cream that has America’s favorite flavors (strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate).
And despite the fact that Neapolitan is more widely known, Spumoni has a recognized day…
National Spumoni Day is officially August 21.
In America, it’s chic to pair this with Christmas cookies in December. So it’s a year round dessert in many ways.
I have fond memories of spumoni ice cream from a young age. I was lucky to have tried this dessert when I was 11 years old. That special summer, we took a family vacation tour around Europe. And when we were served this dessert one night in Italy, I asked for more spumoni, please! 😋
Surprisingly, Spumoni is not easy to find in stores like strawberry, Neapolitan, or even chocolate soft serve without a special errand purpose.
In homemade fashion, you can make your own ice cream. 🍨
And this Spumoni is actually more a light gelato texture or low-fat ice cream without butter fat like in most ice creams.
So, then you can then turn it into more of its Italian gelato origin roots.
Tasty and fun…
Spumoni ice cream is meant to represent the Italian flag and if you serve it traditionally, it would be sliced like a cake. 🇮🇹
But these days you can arrange the cool dessert in the way you like.
The real question is which flavor would you pair with chocolate?
Would you prefer chocolate and fruit or chocolate and nuts?… or chocolate and cherry or chocolate and pistachio?
It’s a fun and enjoyable choice to make.
The cream used in this dairy-free spumoni recipe is coconut cream that’s less fatty unhealthy (as in trans fats), but you can also use heavy cream if you don’t prefer to have a hint of coconut in your flavors and don’t mind the dairy.
And if you want to consider coconut cream, just a thought… coconuts including the oil and cream made it on my list of 200 anti-inflammatory grocery list foods.
Spumoni Ice Cream (No Eggs)
Equipment
- mortar and pestle
- ice cream maker
Ingredients
- coconut cream for healthy or heavy cream
- cocoa
- maraschino cherries
- pistachios, chopped
- Pandan gel for green natural coloring
Instructions
- You can mix and divide your coconut cream for the traditional Spumoni flavors: pistachio, cherry, and chocolate.
- For the pistachio ice cream, chop pistachios and add Pandan plant-based flavoring (has a almond-favorable taste)
- For the cherry ice cream, crush cherries. Reserve cherry juice for coloring.
- For the chocolate cream, add cocoa to the cream.
- For each flavor, add separately to your ice cream maker to smoothly set before freezing or let freeze in your bowl of choice. Tip: use the order above so that colors don't affect the others and so you won't need to clean out the bowl.